TBR News March 18, 2020

The Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C. March 18, 2020:“Working in the White House as a junior staffer is an interesting experience.
When I was younger, I worked as a summer-time job in a clinic for people who had moderate to severe mental problems and the current work closely, at times, echos the earlier one.
I am not an intimate of the President but I have encountered him from time to time and I daily see manifestations of his growing psychological problems.
He insults people, uses foul language, is frantic to see his name mentioned on main-line television and pays absolutely no attention to any advice from his staff that runs counter to his strange ideas.
He lies like a rug to everyone, eats like a hog, makes lewd remarks to female staffers and flies into rages if anyone dares to contradict him.
It is becoming more and more evident to even the least intelligent American voter that Trump is vicious, corrupt and amoral. He has stated often that even if he loses the
election in 2020, he will not leave the White House. I have news for Donald but this is not the place to discuss it.

Commentary for March 18, 2020 : “Like a flock of sheep,high on speed, the general public are bleating at the top of their lungs while stampeding back and forth in their pens. The brainless media are shrieking horror stories about the relatively harmless Corona virus and an imbecilic mass of the public are in a state of hysteria, wearing useless paper masks, washing their hand ten times an hour, often hiding under couches or locking themelves in a closet with a supply of toilet paper and canned soup. It ought to be obvious that this new flu is not deadly and there is a good body of legitimate reporting on the Internet to support this. In spite of it, the mass of sheep bleats and surges about in their pens, hysterical with useless fear. The media is still thundering away about the global terrors of coronavirus but on Google there are an increasing number of stories about the relatively harmless nature of the virus. For some unexplained reason, none of the main line reporters ever seem to read these stories and we are pubishing a uproarious selection of gloom and doom stories.

More scare propganda from Reuters

• Stunned world grapples with ‘once-in-100-year’ battle
• Hundreds of millions of people worldwide were adjusting to once-in-a-generation measures to battle the coronavirus crisis that is not only killing the old and vulnerable but also threatening prolonged economic misery.Coronavirus can persist in air for hours: study
• Coronavirus spreads across the U.S.
• Russia deploying coronavirus disinformation to sow panic in West, EU document says
• No coronavirus party: U.S. spring break destinations crack down on revelers
• Governments scramble to prop up airlines as virus forces more flight, job cuts
• Global powers unleash trillions of dollars to stem spiraling coronavirus crisis
• Coronavirus forces U.S. lawmakers to overcome divide

and from The Guardian

• Trump closing Canada border for ‘non-essential traffic’
• Spain to close all hotels as tourists advised to leave; worldwide cases pass 200,000
• Belgium goes into lockdown; EU implements strictest travel ban in history; outbreak reaches every US state.
• UK coronavirus live: schools in Scotland and Wales to close from Friday
• More than 250m in lockdown as European measures widen
• UK presses US to ease Iran sanctions amid virus crisis
• Tests, masks, beds: health workers grapple with shortages as coronavirus crisis grows
• Two Canadian provinces declare state of emergency as Covid-19 fears deepen
• Cases in British Columbia almost double in one day, while Ontario premier says it faces ‘danger of major proportions’
• New York shuts down over coronavirus

and from the New York Times

• Layoffs Are Just Starting in the U.S., and the Forecasts Are Bleak
• Coronavirus Is Closing Social Security Offices. Here’s How to Get Benefit Help
• I’m a Doctor in Britain. We’re Heading Into the Abyss.
• How to Protect Older People From the Coronavirus
• Stock Markets Fall as Alarm Persists:
• New Yorkers Brace for Months of Restriction
• Can California Keep 9 Million People at Home?
• Nations Pledge Trillions to Stave Off Economic Catastrophe
• Virus disrupts U.S. troop withdrawal in Afghanistan.
• America’s hospitals are danerous low on ventilators
• Belgium goes on total lockdown, and European officials warn against flouting rules.

and the Washington Post

• Cases top 200,000 worldwide; disruptions may last for months
• California schools are unlikely to reopen this school year
• DIY nasal swabs, drive-throughs, labs in overdrive: Americans are desperate for more virus testing
• Dow drops more than 1,300 points at open
• Experts expect U.S. death toll to rise quickly
• China’s coronavirus propaganda campaign is putting lives at risk
• Spain orders hotels to close
• Germany suspends refugee resettlement programs
• White House plan aims to send $2,000 to many Americans, includes $300 billion for small businesses
• Dow drops more than 1,300 points at open

and, finally, from Deutsche Welle

• Coronavirus latest: Eurovision Song Contest canceled
• European stock markets nosedive at open
• Russia denies EU allegations over coronavirus disinformation campaign
• Price hikes in Africa aggravate coronavirus crisis
• Germany coronavirus threat raised to ‘high’ alert
• Euro 2020 postponed until 2021 amid coronavirus pandemic
• Coronavirus: The consequences for tourism
• What does the coronavirus do when it infects someone?
• Russia denies EU allegations over coronavirus disinformation campaign
• Germany coronavirus threat raised to ‘high’ alert

How about

• Coronavirus might be responsible for fallen arches doctors say
• All funeral homes closed due to coronavirus
• China death toll is now ten
• All breathing forbidden in public: New York mayor’s office
• Coronavirus breaks out in Antarcticia; many penguins threatened
• Congrress to establish position of Roadkill Examiner
• Coronavirus sweeps through Michigan; three dead
• All public lavatories in Miami closed for two months due to virus
• Every American to be issued one free roll of toilet paper because of Congress bill
• Arctic polar bears might be carrier of virus. Forbidden to enter Canada
• WHO said all sexual activity must cease at once. Masturbation forbidden in Michigan

The Table of Contents
• Hand off! What can we touch during the coronavirus outbreak?
• Coronavirus confusion about safety of ibuprofen
• Experts condemn ‘rumors and misinformation’ about coronavirus
• A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data
• Be careful where you get your news about coronavirus
• The Bunche Report
• Encyclopedia of American Loons

Hand off! What can we touch during the coronavirus outbreak?
March 18, 2020
DW
Contaminated door handles
Current research says the coronavirus family of viruses can survive on some surfaces, like door handles, for an average of four to five days. Like all droplet infections, SARS-CoV-2 can spread via hands and frequently touched surfaces. Although it hasn’t previously been seen in humans and therefore hasn’t been studied in detail, experts believe it spreads similarly to other known coronaviruses.
Not so delicious
A certain degree of caution is called for when eating lunch at your work cafeteria or in a cafe — that is, if they haven’t been closed yet. Technically, coronaviruses can contaminate cutlery or crockery if they’re coughed on by an infected person. But the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) states that “no infections with SARS-CoV-2 via this transmission route are known to date.”
Virus-carrying teddy bears?
Should parents be afraid of a possible infection from imported toys? It’s unlikely, say the BfR. As of yet, there are no cases of an infection via imported toys or other goods. Experts have so far assumed that the viruses have a relatively low environmental stability, but research does show that the pathogens can remain infectious for several days, especially in high humidity and cold settings.
Packages, letters and shipped goods
A recent study from the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in the US found the novel coronavirus can survive up to 72 hours on stainless steel and up to 24 hours on plastic and cardboard surfaces — in an ideal laboratory setting. But because the survival of the virus is dependent on many factors like temperature and humidity, the BfR says getting infected from handling the post is “rather unlikely.”
Can my dog infect me, or can I infect my dog?
Experts consider the risk of pets being infected with the coronavirus to be very low. But they can’t yet rule it out. The animals themselves show no symptoms, so they don’t become ill. However, if they are infected, it is possible they could transmit coronaviruses via the air or via excretions (their poop).
Fruit and vegetables: suddenly dangerous?
“Unlikely.” According to the BfR, transmitting SARS-CoV-2 via contaminated food is not likely to happen and, so far, there are no proven cases of infection this way. As the viruses are heat-sensitive, heating food during cooking can further reduce the risk of infection. Of course, you should thoroughly wash your hands before cooking and eating — and this goes for anytime, regardless of corona!
Contaminated frozen food
Although the SARS and MERS coronaviruses known to date don’t like heat, they are quite immune to the cold. Research shows they can remain infectious at minus 20 degrees Celsius for up to two years. But the BfR gives frozen food the all-clear. So far, there’s no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection via the consumption of any food, including frozen food
But leave those wild animals alone!
The COVID-19 outbreak has prompted many extraordinary measures and China’s ban of the consumption of wild animals is no exception. There is compelling research to suggest the novel coronavirus originated in bats before being passed to humans via another intermediate animal. But it’s not the animals we need to blame — experts say humans are exposed to these viruses via our interaction with animals.
If you find yourself suspiciously staring at your pets, your potatoes and even those birthday cards on the mantelpiece, you aren’t alone. Coronavirus is seemingly everywhere. What’s safe to touch? Here are some answers.

Coronavirus confusion about safety of ibuprofen
March 18, 2020
by Alexander Freund
DW
First it was called fake news, then the WHO advised people not to take ibuprofen in the event of a coronavirus infection. Where does the ibuprofen theory come from and how does SARS-CoV-2 affect the body?
In the current corona pandemic, people with pre-existing conditions such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and diabetes are particularly at risk. Not only because their health is weakened, but possibly also — it is suspected — because they are taking medicines that can cause a severe course of infection with the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
About a quarter of the world’s population has high blood pressure, and in many industrialized countries, such as Germany, up to a third of the population is affected. And many people take antihypertensive drugs such as ACE inhibitors or Sartan, which are believed to promote severe courses of the new coronavirus infection.
Diabetes drugs such as the insulin sensitizer thiazolidinedione (glitazone) and the well-known painkiller ibuprofen are also suspected of upregulating the very ACE2 receptor that enables SARS viruses to enter cells.
Although this is still only an unconfirmed theory that is not backed by reliable studies, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that in cases of a possible corona infection, those affected should not take ibuprofen without medical advice. Instead, the WHO recommends paracetamol, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said in Geneva on Tuesday.
What do leading German virologists say?
In view of the lack of hard facts and data, leading German virologists have so far been very cautious about possible negative effects of ibuprofen. The same applies to the acetylsalicylic acid preparations (ASS; aspirin) and diclofenac, which belong to this group of active ingredients.
“We know little about the pathogenesis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and there are no clinical data available to date,” said virologist Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM).
Virologist Christian Drosten of the Berlin Charité also said he has doubts. Although the virus is new, other coronaviruses have been studied for some time, and with these “there is no indication that ibuprofen intake would worsen anything. I think that we would know that by now if this were the case,” said Drosten.
However, all the experts strongly advise against patients panicking and no longer taking prescribed ACE inhibitors or Sartan therapy and switching to medicines with other active ingredients.
The experts also agreed that patients should always consult a doctor. If a person has already contracted the new coronavirus, it is better to take paracetamol instead of ibuprofen when self-medicating, according to the WHO.
Where does the suspicion come from?
The basis for the current suspicion that ACE inhibitors and also ibuprofen could have a similar negative effect is an article published in Lancet Respiratory Medicine on March 11, 2020.
In it, the three authors L. Fang, G. Karakiulakis and M. Roth explain that ACE inhibitors and Sartan, but also thiazolidinediones and ibuprofen, could exacerbate the COVID-19 process. However, the authors have explicitly formulated this as a hypothesis.
Tests with rats have already shown that ACE inhibitors and angiotensin-1 receptor blockers actually upregulate ACE2 in heart cells, and tests with diabetic rats have shown an influence of ibuprofen on the regulatory system.
However, without strong data and evidence to back it up, it is still impossible to make a reliable assessment based on current findings.
How does the coronavirus penetrate cells
The surfaces of cells have ACE receptors that bind ACE enzymes. SARS viruses, including the new SARS-CoV-2, use the transmembrane enzyme ACE2 (angiotensin-converting enzyme 2) to enter their host cells and begin replication. Scientists have known about this process since the SARS epidemic in 2002/2003.
Therapeutically used ACE inhibitors do not bind directly to ACE2, but intercept and block the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE). It is assumed that the ACE receptors remain free, which allows the viruses to dock with them and penetrate the cell. There is a chance cells could even increase the number of ACE2 receptors when the ACE enzyme is intercepted and give the dangerous viruses even more points of attack.
In the case of a viral attack, ACE2 downregulation would lead to the loss of the natural protective function and the drugs would additionally promote the severe progression of the new lung disease COVID-19. According to the hypothesis formulated in Lancet, ibuprofen is believed to have a similar effect.
According to the supporters of the still unconfirmed hypothesis, the high coronavirus mortality rate seen in Italy could possibly be explained by this process since Italy has a high rate of ACE inhibitor use. Reliable data for this hypothesis, however, is also not yet available.

Experts condemn ‘rumors and misinformation’ about coronavirus
February 21, 2020 –
by Maria Cohut, Ph.D.
Medical News Today
Scientists from nine countries have issued a joint statement “strongly condemning conspiracy theories” surrounding the origin of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and urging those who cultivate the rumors to consider the harmful consequences of misinformation.
On Wednesday of this week, 27 public health specialists hailing from international research institutions in nine countries have issued a joint statement published in The Lancet.
In the statement, they express increasing concern over the spread of unsupported claims that the new coronavirus — SARS-CoV-2 — was created and leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
“We are public health scientists who have closely followed the emergence of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and are deeply concerned about its impact on global health and well-being,” the scientists write.
The rumors — which have permeated social media and fed tabloids — have spurred specialists’ worries that misinformation could significantly harm progress in tackling SARS-CoV-2.
“The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumors and misinformation around its origins,” warn the authors of the statement in The Lancet.
‘We strongly condemn conspiracy theories’
Although the statement does not mention specific names or institutions, speculations about the alleged origin of the virus have incriminated the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has studied coronaviruses in bats.
However, researchers officially affiliated with that institution have repeatedly denied such claims.
“The Wuhan Institute of Virology has no infections, and the patient zero did not come from us,” Chen Quanjiao, a researcher at the institute, reportedly told media outlets.
But specialists have not been able to quash such rumors, which have been perpetuated even by individuals with highly public profiles, such as politicians.
One recent example is that of United States Senator Tom Cotton, who has publicly accused Chinese authorities of secretiveness around the true origins of the new virus.
The specialists who co-signed the new statement in The Lancet emphasize that such claims are not based in fact and that they threaten what is currently a strong international collaboration between researchers and health officials. They write:
“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”
“Scientists from multiple countries have published and analyzed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,” they add.
Potential for real harm
“Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumors, and prejudice that jeopardize our global collaboration in the fight against this virus,” warn the specialists.
One co-author, Peter Daszak, Ph.D., head of the public health research organization EcoHealth Alliance, based in the U.S., emphasized that rumormongering could also encourage social tension and violence.
“We’re in the midst of the social media misinformation age, and these rumors and conspiracy theories have real consequences, including threats of violence that have occurred to our colleagues in China,” Daszak commented toScience Insider.
“We have a choice whether to stand up and support colleagues who are being attacked and threatened daily by conspiracy theorists or to just turn a blind eye. I’m really proud that people from nine countries are able to rapidly come to their defense and show solidarity with people who are, after all, dealing with horrific conditions in an outbreak,” he said.

A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data
March 17, 2020
by John P.A. Ioannidis
Stat News
The current coronavirus disease, Covid-19, has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic. But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco.
At a time when everyone needs better information, from disease modelers and governments to people quarantined or just social distancing, we lack reliable evidence on how many people have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 or who continue to become infected. Better information is needed to guide decisions and actions of monumental significance and to monitor their impact.
Draconian countermeasures have been adopted in many countries. If the pandemic dissipates — either on its own or because of these measures — short-term extreme social distancing and lockdowns may be bearable. How long, though, should measures like these be continued if the pandemic churns across the globe unabated? How can policymakers tell if they are doing more good than harm?
Vaccines or affordable treatments take many months (or even years) to develop and test properly. Given such timelines, the consequences of long-term lockdowns are entirely unknown.
Related: We know enough now to act decisively against Covid-19. Social distancing is a good place to start
The data collected so far on how many people are infected and how the epidemic is evolving are utterly unreliable. Given the limited testing to date, some deaths and probably the vast majority of infections due to SARS-CoV-2 are being missed. We don’t know if we are failing to capture infections by a factor of three or 300. Three months after the outbreak emerged, most countries, including the U.S., lack the ability to test a large number of people and no countries have reliable data on the prevalence of the virus in a representative random sample of the general population.
This evidence fiasco creates tremendous uncertainty about the risk of dying from Covid-19. Reported case fatality rates, like the official 3.4% rate from the World Health Organization, cause horror — and are meaningless. Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes. As most health systems have limited testing capacity, selection bias may even worsen in the near future.
The one situation where an entire, closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. The case fatality rate there was 1.0%, but this was a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.
Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%. But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data — there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew — the real death rate could stretch from five times lower (0.025%) to five times higher (0.625%). It is also possible that some of the passengers who were infected might die later, and that tourists may have different frequencies of chronic diseases — a risk factor for worse outcomes with SARS-CoV-2 infection — than the general population. Adding these extra sources of uncertainty, reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population vary from 0.05% to 1%.
Related: Coronavirus model shows individual hospitals what to expect in the coming weeks
That huge range markedly affects how severe the pandemic is and what should be done. A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.
Could the Covid-19 case fatality rate be that low? No, some say, pointing to the high rate in elderly people. However, even some so-called mild or common-cold-type coronaviruses that have been known for decades can have case fatality rates as high as 8% when they infect elderly people in nursing homes. In fact, such “mild” coronaviruses infect tens of millions of people every year, and account for 3% to 11% of those hospitalized in the U.S. with lower respiratory infections each winter.
These “mild” coronaviruses may be implicated in several thousands of deaths every year worldwide, though the vast majority of them are not documented with precise testing. Instead, they are lost as noise among 60 million deaths from various causes every year.
Although successful surveillance systems have long existed for influenza, the disease is confirmed by a laboratory in a tiny minority of cases. In the U.S., for example, so far this season 1,073,976 specimens have been tested and 222,552 (20.7%) have tested positive for influenza. In the same period, the estimated number of influenza-like illnesses is between 36,000,000 and 51,000,000, with an estimated 22,000 to 55,000 flu deaths.
Note the uncertainty about influenza-like illness deaths: a 2.5-fold range, corresponding to tens of thousands of deaths. Every year, some of these deaths are due to influenza and some to other viruses, like common-cold coronaviruses.
In an autopsy series that tested for respiratory viruses in specimens from 57 elderly persons who died during the 2016 to 2017 influenza season, influenza viruses were detected in 18% of the specimens, while any kind of respiratory virus was found in 47%. In some people who die from viral respiratory pathogens, more than one virus is found upon autopsy and bacteria are often superimposed. A positive test for coronavirus does not mean necessarily that this virus is always primarily responsible for a patient’s demise.

Be careful where you get your news about coronavirus
March 16, 2020
by Robert H. Shmerling, MD
Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing
News about the new and deadly virus that appeared in Wuhan, China in December of 2019 is everywhere. The virus is now called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease it causes is called COVID-19.
Where should you turn for the latest information on a rapidly changing situation? It’s hard to beat the convenience of the internet, and we know there’s a lot of useful and reliable information online. But there’s also a lot of misinformation. The trick is to figure out which is which.
Why you need to know about this new virus
The concern regarding this rapidly spreading virus is well-deserved. At this writing, statistics on infections and deaths worldwide are truly sobering.
Unfortunately, the numbers are likely to rise as efforts to quickly contain its spread have proven unsuccessful. So, it’s particularly important to get reliable information about what is happening and to find out what you can do to protect yourself.
Beware: Misinformation is rampant
Just as the number of people and countries affected by this new virus have spread, so have conspiracy theories and unfounded claims about it. Social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok, have seen a number of false and misleading posts, such as:
“Oregano Oil Proves Effective Against Coronavirus,” an unfounded claim
• a hoax stating that the US government had created and patented a vaccine for coronavirus years ago, shared with nearly 5,000 Facebook users
• a false claim that “coronavirus is a human-made virus in the laboratory”
• sales of unproven “nonmedical immune boosters” to help people ward off 2019-nCoV
• unfounded recommendations to prevent infection by taking vitamin C and avoiding spicy foods
• dangerous suggestions that drinking bleach and snorting cocaine can cure coronavirus infection
• a video with useless advice about preventing infection with the new coronavirus by modifying your diet (for example, by avoiding cold drinks, milkshakes, or ice cream). This video, which demonstrates the removal of a parasitic worm from a person’s lip, is many years old and has nothing to do with the current virus.
Facebook is trying to fact-check postings, label those that are clearly false, and reduce their ranking so they are less prominently displayed. Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok have also taken steps to limit or label misinformation. But it’s nearly impossible to catch them all, especially since some are in private social media groups and are harder to find.
Don’t forget about the flu
While news of a novel and deadly virus spreading across the globe may be terrifying, it’s important to recognize that there’s another, more familiar virus in this country to be concerned about: it’s the flu. According to the CDC, there have already been up to 51 million cases of the flu this season, leading to hundreds of thousands of hospital admissions and up to 55,000 deaths.
Getting a flu shot is a great first step if you’re worrying about avoiding illness. Other measures to protect yourself from the flu (such as staying away from others who are sick and taking care to not infect others if you’re sick) are basic strategies that can also help you avoid the new coronavirus.
Reliable online sources on the new coronavirus and COVID-19
While no one source of information is perfect, some are undeniably better than others! It’s best to look for sites that: rely on experts who use well-accepted scientific analyses and publish their results in reputable medical journals have a mission to inform and protect the public, such as the CDC and the WHO, which recently added a myth busters page to its information on the virus are not promoting or selling a product related to the information provided.
Other good online sources of information on the virus include:
Medline Plus, from the US National Library of Medicine
the UK’s National Health Service
the US Food and Drug Administration
While gathering information online may be your easiest initial option, isolate yourself and contact your doctor if you have symptoms of an infection, such as fever, cough, or shortness of breath. (If you don’t have a doctor, call the nearest clinic for advice.) If necessary, a doctor may recommend that you see a specialist at an academic medical center (such as a hospital affiliated with a major medical school) who is likely to have the most recent information about a previously unknown infectious illness like this one.
The bottom line
When considering a new infectious disease about which so much is still unknown, it’s important to seek out reliable information and act on it. Be skeptical of implausible conspiracy theories or claims of “fake news” that dismiss recommendations from public health officials. Addressing the concerns surrounding the new coronavirus requires accessible, reliable, and frequently updated information; the best we can do is to look to the experts whose mission it is to protect public health.
For more information about the new coronavirus and COVID-19, please see Harvard Health Publishing’s Coronavirus Resource Center.

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 assassi¬nated outside the minister’s Cairo residence. Two murderers were involved. One was injured, and both were imme¬diately 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.
4
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

5
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.
6
January 18, 1946, Haifa. Over 900 illegal Jewish immi¬grants were captured off Haifa by the British Royal Navy
7
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.
8
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 ques¬tioned 3,000 Jews and held 148 in custody.
9
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.
10
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.
11
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.
12
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.
13
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.
14
July 3, 1946, Palestine. Palestine High Commissioner Lt. General Sir Alan Cunningham commuted to life impris¬onment the death sentences of Josef Simkhon and Issac Ashbel, Irgun members.
15
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.
16
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.
17
July 23, l946 Jerusalem. The Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorist group takes responsibility for the King David bombing but blames the British, calling them “tyrants.”
18
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.
19
July 28, 1946, Jerusalem. The British Palestine Commander, Lt. General Sir Evelyn Barker, banned frater¬nization 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”
20
July 29, 1946, Tel Aviv. Police in Tel Aviv raided a workshop making bombs.
21
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.
22
July 31, 1946, Tel Aviv. A large cache of weapons, exten¬sive counterfeiting equipment and $1,000,000 in counterfeit Government bonds were discovered in Tel Aviv’s largest synagogue.
23
July 31, 1946, Haifa. Two ships have arrived at Haifa with a total of 3,200 illegal Jewish immigrants.
24
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 discov¬ered on July 1 in a school building.
25
August 2, 1946, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government disclosed that 91 persons were killed and 45 injured in the King David bombing.
26
August 2, 1946, Jerusalem. Jerusalem police announced the arrest of Itzhak Yestemitsky second man in the Stern gang.
27
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 immi¬gration 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.
28
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.
29
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.
30
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 popu¬lation of one of the villages were sent to the Rafa detention center.
31
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
32
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.
33
August 30, 1946, Palestine. British military units discov¬ered arms and munitions dumps in the Jewish farming vil¬lages of Dorot and Ruhama.
34
September 8, 1946, Palestine. Zionist terrorists cut the Palestine railroad in 50 places.
35
September 9, 1946, Tel Aviv. two British officers were killed in an explosion in a public building.
36
September 9, 1946, Haifa. An Arab constable was killed.
37
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.
38
September 14, 1946, Jaffa. Jewish terrorists robbed three banks in Jaffa and Tel Aviv, killing three Arabs. Thirty-six Jews were arrested.
39
September 15, 1946, Tel Aviv. Jewish terrorists attacked a police station on the coast near Tel Aviv but were driven off by gunfire.
40
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 ter¬rorist gang.
41
October 6, 1944 Jerusalem. An RAF man was killed by gunfire
42
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 simi¬lar mine explosion in Jerusalem and more road mines were found near Government House.
43
October 31, 1946, Rome. The British Embassy in Rome was damaged by a bomb, believed to have been planted by Jewish terrorists.
44
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.
45
November 4, 1946, Rome. Italian authorities released a letter in which the Jewish terrorist gang, Irgun, took credit for the October 31 embassy bombing.
46
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.
47
November 7, 1946, Palestine. Railroad traffic was suspended for 24 hours throughout Palestine following a fourth Irgun attack on railway facilities in two days.
48
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 suit¬case bombs, increased their attacks on railroad stations, trains and even streetcars.
49
November 14, 1946, London. The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned Jewish terrorist groups who threatened to export their terrorism to England.
50
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.
51
Five persons were injured when a bomb exploded in the Jerusalem tax office.
52
December 2 through December 5,1946, Palestine. Ten persons, including six British soldiers, were killed in bomb and land-mine explosions.
53
December 3,1946, Jerusalem. A member of the Stern gang was killed in an aborted hold-up attempt
54
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

55
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.
56
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.
57
January 4, 1947, Jerusalem. British soldiers have been ordered to wear sidearms at all times and were forbidden to enter any cafe or restaurant
58
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.
59
January 8, 1947, Palestine. British police arrested 32 per¬sons suspected of being members of the Irgun terrorist gang’s “Black Squad” in raids on Rishon-el Zion and Rehoboth.
60
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
61
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.
62
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.
63
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.
64
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.
65
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.”
66
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.
67
January 29, 1947, London. It was officially announced that the British Cabinet decided to partition Palestine.
68
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.
69
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.
70
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
71
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.
72
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.
73
February 9, 1947, Haifa. British troops removed 650 ille¬gal Jewish immigrants from the schooner ‘Negev” at Haifa and after a struggle forced them aboard the ferry ‘Emperor Haywood” for deportation to Cyprus.
74
February 14, 1947, Jerusalem. The British administration revealed that Lt Gen. Sir Evelyn Barker, retiring British commander in Palestine, had confirmed the death sen¬tences of three Irgun members on February 12 before leav¬ing 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 sen¬tence because of his youth. Lt Gen. G. MacMillian arrived in Jerusalem on February 13 to succeed Gen. Barker.
75
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.
76
March 9, 1947, Hadera. A British army camp was attacked.
77
March 10, 1947, Haifa. A Jew, suspected of being an informer, was murdered by Jewish terrorists.
78
March 12, 1947, Jerusalem. The British Army pay corps was dynamited in Jerusalem and one soldier killed.
79
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.
80
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.
81
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.
82
March 16, 1947, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency building was bombed.
83
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
84
March 17, 1947, Palestine. A military court sentenced Moshe Barazani to be hanged for possessing a hand grenade.
85
March 18, 1947, Palestine. Terrorist leaflets admitted the murder of Michael Shnell on Mount Carmel as an informer.
86
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 presum¬ably slain as a suspected informer
87
March 26, 1947, London. Britain’s Privy Council rejected the appeal of the death sentence against Dov Bela Gruner.
88
March 28, 1947, Haifa. The Irgun blew up the Iraq Petroleum Co. pipeline in Haifa.
89
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.
90
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.
91
March 30, 1947, Tel Aviv. The Stem gang killed the wife of a British soldier.
92
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
93
April 2, 1947, Cyprus. The “Ocean Vigour’ was damaged by a bomb in Famagusta Harbor, Cyprus. The Haganah admitted the bombing.
94
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.
95
April 3, 1947. The transport “Empire Rival” was dam¬aged by a time bomb while en route from Haifa to Port Said in Egypt
96
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.
97
April 8, 1947, Jerusalem. Jewish terrorists killed a British constable in revenge for the Cohen death.
98
April 9, 1947, Palestine. The Palestine Government abandoned “statutory martial law” in the face of unfavor¬able publicity but granted itself military dictatorship powers in “controlled areas” it may impose.
99
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 bloodshed.
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 immigra¬tion 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 ter¬rorist 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 ille¬gal 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 ille¬gal 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 trans¬ferred 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
uly 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 eucalyp¬tus 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 sol¬diers, 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 extin¬guisher 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 actu¬ally 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 custody.
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 execu¬tive 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 con¬sulate 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 administra¬tion disclosed that it will sell state-owned real estate along the Haifa waterfront, from which it expects to make $8 mil¬lion. 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 agita¬tors 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 vic¬timized 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 coun¬tries 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 advi¬sors 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 strug¬gle.” They promised to “prosecute the fight until victori¬ous” General Nuri as-Said Pasha, president of the Iraqi Senate, accused the US. of breaking a promise of neutrali¬ty.
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 lash-
es, 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 vio¬lence 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 pos¬sible 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 pre¬vented 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 immedi¬ately 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 “cata¬strophic” 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 rea¬sons.” It warned that “continuance of indiscriminate mur¬der” 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 popu¬lation 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 surren¬der of its mandate over Palestine.
February 16, 1948. Assembly’s Palestine Commission asked for UN army to enforce partition over Arab resis¬tance.
February 24. US. sidestepped endorsing forcible parti¬tion, 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 reconsid¬er 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 dyna¬mite 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 monu¬ments 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 gen¬eral 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 resis¬tance 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 dri¬ven 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 immedi¬ately.
257
May 16, 1948, New York The number of states recog¬nizing Israel increased to eight this week, and the new country applied for admission to the UN. Russia immedi¬ately granted recognition on May 17, implying that it rec¬ognized 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.

Encyclopedia of American Loons

Peggy Huddleston

Even the most hardened woo-proponent will usually admit that surgery and emergency treatments of traumatic injuries are pretty obvious success stories for conventional medicine. It’s not surprising, then, that they are eager to claim they can help in these situations as well, in particular to ensure “faster healing” after surgery. Peggy Huddleston, for instance, claims that verbal messages given to a patient under general anesthesia result in “faster healing”, which, though apparently rather innocuous, is an impressively silly idea. Huddleston is a a self-described psychotherapist and the proud recipient of an M.T.S. (Master of Theological Studies) degree from the Harvard Divinity School, and she has managed to turn her “faster healing” ideas into a relatively sleek and professional-looking business. Her book Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster is crammed with endorsements from charlatans, quacks and crackpots like Andrew Weil, Larry Dossey, Jean Watson, Caroline Myss, C. Norman Shealy, Mehmet Oz and “mind/body” maven Joan Borysenko – Christiane Northrup wrote the foreword.
Well, some of Huddleston’s claims are of course plausible and sensible. But “plausibility” and “sensibility” are hardly the criteria Huddleston uses to select what advice she will offer: “… recent studies have documented that care, appreciation and love boost the immune system and enhance the functioning of the heart … Since the heart creates a large electrical field of energy that influences every cell, this has a very positive effect on the entire body.” Methinks think Huddleston may be confusing human anatomy and physiology with the narrative structure of a WalMart paperback romance. So yes, here you find recommendations for intercessory prayer, blaming disease on negative emotions (i.e. blaming the victim for their own physical illness) reiki (“[w]ithout touching the body, practitioners use their hands to influence the field of energy that pulsates in and around the physical body. Physicists call this a force field;” I don’t think those are physicists, Peggy), various forms of energy healing, and acupuncture (which “makes even major surgery free of pain. For 5,000 years, acupuncture has also been used for the treatment and prevention of disease,” which is false but would anyways make it more recent practice than burning witches). It’s all about the powers of the New Age. Physical illnesses are really “trying to ‘talk’ to you, telling you that something is amiss. Your intuition knows what is out of balance and causing a health problem. Allow yourself to hear what it is.” Be like native Americans: “Lakota children could easily merge their beings with an eagle, soaring with it through the clouds.”
No seriously. Just think about the fact that “[y]ou’ll use less pain medication after surgery if your anesthesiologist says three Healing Statements to you during surgery.” The D&D rules say so, and yes – Peggy Huddleston is recommending that anesthesiologists try to cast healing spells. The point is of course that you are suppose to hear these incantations while you are anesthesized. Though Huddleston admits that “there is ongoing scientific debate about how much an anesthetized patient can hear,” she brazenly concludes that “one point is clear: We never stop hearing.”
And though she claims that “[m]edical research documents the dramatic benefits” of her bullshit, she doesn’t really discuss that research in detail (she does offer some references, most of which are either unpublished or more than 40 years old, based on the principle that you select what seems to fit your hypothesis and avoid looking at the aggregate result of studies like the plague), focusing rather on trying to sell you a series of “Testimonials” DVDs from her website.
Diagnosis: Utter bullshit. But apparently Huddleston seems to have attracted quite a following and her business appears to be doing remarkably well. Which is pretty sad.

Jim Humble

Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS) a solution of 28% sodium chlorite (NaClO2), a toxic industrial chemical known to cause fatal renal failure, in distilled water and prepared in a citric acid solution (thus forming chlorine dioxide, an oxidising agent used in water treatment and bleaching), named and promoted by former scientologist Jim Humble – especially in his 2006 self-published book The Miracle Mineral Solution of the 21st Century. MMS is promoted as a cure for HIV, malaria, viral hepatitis, the H1N1 flu virus, ebola, colds, acne, cancer and lots of other stuff (though on e.g. eBay it is generally sold as a water purifier to circumvent certain restrictions on pushing dangerous substances as medicine; at least one importer has been convicted in the UK). Of course, any remedy that is claimed to be effective against a wide range of unrelated diseases is bullshit (except to the extent that it might cause death, which sort of brings any other illness you might suffer from to an end and which MMS can, in fact, bring about), and Humble’s evidence is strictly limited to anecdotes, which are not supported by (and don’t support) anything. Even whale.to is skeptical, which is something to think about.
The treatment was first advertised to poor families in Haiti and the Dominican Republic as a low-cost solution to their medical needs, and though much of the marketing is targeted at religious cults or people in really desperate situations, MMS has recently been promoted as a “cure” for autistic children. Subjecting a child’s gastrointestinal system to industrial bleaching agents is child abuse, but MMS has nevertheless been promoted at the anti-vaccination movement’s annual quackfest Autism One, and seems to have gained some popularity due to credulous testimonials bandied around by people who don’t know how evidence and reason work. How it is supposed to work seems to be somewhat debated (on closed forums; report here) but apparently it is supposed to clear the body of mystery parasites known as “rope worms” and other pathogens that delusional users apparently believe cause autism (horror stories here; the most horrible part being, of course, how MMS fans, like the religious fanatics they are, take any (negative) effect of the treatment on the patient to be a good sign). The idea is, needless to say, one step up from autism-is-caused-by-evil-spirits and one notch below autism-is-caused-by-imbalance-of-the-humors, and has nothing to do with anything resembling science or minimal knowledge of how the body works. (And of course: the parasites are caused by vaccines – adopting one crazy delusion doesn’t mean that you have to give up the others; they all fit together in a grand unified system of depraved nonsense).
As a matter of fact, authorities have – for once – tended to take MMS seriously as the insanity it is both in Europe and the US (see here for a good summary, and here for fair and balanced coverage). Because of reports including nausea, vomiting, and dangerously low blood pressure as a result of dehydration following instructed use of Humble’s bleach product, the FDA has advised consumers to dispose of the product immediately, and (e.g.) Irish parents who have used MMS on their children are facing criminal investigations. In the US, Kerri Rivera – the main promoter of MMS as an autism cure – was subpoenaed in the wake of her presentation at the 2015 Autism One conference, and after proving (of course) to be unable to present anything resembling evidence for the benefit of MMS she was forced to sign an agreement barring her from further promoting it or appearing at conferences in the state of Illinois. There have been legal backfires as well. In 2015 Louis Daniel Smith was found guilty of selling industrial bleach as a miracle cure for various diseases including cancer, AIDS, malaria, hepatitis, lyme disease, asthma and colds (three of his alleged co-conspirators, Chris Olson, Tammy Olson and Karis DeLong, pleaded guilty to introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce before the trial). Rivera claims MMS is most most effective when doses are timed to cycles of the moon: “full moon because the parasites go into the gut during the full moon and the new moon and they mate,” says Rivera.
Jim Humble himself is the self-styled archbishop of The Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, and tends to present himself as some sort of messiah; a report from a secret meeting of his church is here. MMS is described as a “sacrament”, though that is probably mostly for legal purposes. Humble lists an impressive CV (hard to back up, of course), including having cured malaria (though of course the Red Cross is desperately trying to cover up the remarkable results for unclear reasons but a tendency toward conspiracy). As for evidence, well, he’s got some testimonials – e.g. from Lindsay “Bionic woman” Wagner – and seems not to understand why anyone would ask for anything else. Among the more interesting details of his background is his claim to have been sent to earth from a “Planet of the Gods” in the Andromeda galaxy on a mining mission, which is also how he discovered the miracle cure. He also has plenty of stories of how he has been pushing his dangerous nonsense to poor areas of Africa as a cure for malaria, which is not funny. Humble seems to have had a particular success with cults (the CBC recently covered the trend among certain religious groups using MMS for healing purposes, for instance) – though I suppose most of his groups of fans may come close to fit that description in any case – where Humble can really emphasize the magic properties of his bleach product to audiences receptive to that kind of crazy. Humble’s “archbishop” Mark Grenon says that if you get breast cancer you brought it on yourself, and that women should rely on MMS, not mammograms, surgery, and chemotherapy.
Diagnosis: The mind boggles at the insanity of it all – and it attracts otherwise ordinary-looking people in a manner reminiscent of standard horror movie tropes about dark cults. Humble himself is either a very cynical liar or a complete idiot. Those are not mutually exclusive attributes.

Jock Doubleday

A standard ploy among denialists is to offer pseudo-challenges to scientists to prove that the scientific fact they deny is true or that their pseudoscientific delusions are false – where the protocol for testing or standards of proof are set by them, of course, to ensure that they will (with some exceptions) never be satisfied. Kent Hovind’s $250,000 challenge is probably the most famous, but Ray Comfort’s $10,000 prize to anyone who can present a “genuine living transitional form” has received its share of scorn as well (Comfort defines a transitional form as “a lizard that produced a bird, or a dog that produced kittens, or a sheep that produced a chicken, or even as Archaeopteryx–a dinosaur that produced a bird,” which is not what a transitional form is, making the challenge an impossible one). Deepak Chopra’s “explain consciousness” challenge is arguably even dumber.
Jock Doubleday, also known as the director or Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc. and the author of such intriguing works as ‘The Burning Time (Stories of the Modern-day Persecution of Midwives)’ and ‘Lolita Shrugged (THE MYTH OF AGE-SPECIFIC MATURITY )’ has, in the same vein, gained himself some ridicule for his offer of “$75,000.00 to the first medical doctor or pharmaceutical company CEO who publicly drinks a mixture of standard vaccine additives ingredients in the same amount as a six-year-old child is recommended to receive under the year-2005 guidelines of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (In the event that thimerosal has recently been removed from a particular vaccine, the thimerosal-containing version of that vaccine will be used.)” The mixture will be body weight calibrated. By 2006 Doubleday claimed that “14 doctors, or persons claiming to be doctors, have contacted me about publicly drinking the vaccine additives mixture. None have followed through.” And to ensure that no one actually follows through with the challenge, Doubleday has created a pretty substantial list of criteria to be satisfied: Any participant must go through a psychiatric evaluation, a history of any mental health based counseling, an email exam of 10 questions regarding vaccine theory and history, compulsory purchase and reading of at last five altmed anti-vaccine books, a 20 question written exam, a certificate of good health, and so on and so forth. In short: You’re not going to pass; just forget it. In fact, several doctors have approached Doubleday, but they have all been rejected by him because of various details with regard to their application or because Doubleday just rejected them – it is, after all, up to him to determine whether the challenger is eligible). Of course, the test itself has been passed with flying colors: In 1996 a German guy ingested a dose of at least 1500 times the maximum dose of thimerosal a 6-year old with a complete vaccine history would theoretically have received in one go (weight adjusted!). It seems to have been unpleasant, but the guy recovered completely and did not develop autism.
Doubleday is, of course, a hardcore anti-vaxx loon. Not only are vaccines dangerous, “vaccines have never been shown by science to prevent any disease (you’d need a long-term controlled study for that).” Yeah, it’s kind of precisely like claiming that no one has shown that falling to the ground from 9000 feet is harmful. And no, Doubleday doesn’t understand science, or how evidence is measured, at all. Not that it would matter; all the science in the world wouldn’t change Doubleday’s mind, since it is all a conspiracy. Writes Doubleday: “There is a dark force working to undermine all ecosystems on Earth. This force is a trans-century cult that calls itself the Illuminati – because its members believe that one day they will be ‘illuminated’ and become gods on Earth. Illuminati members have infiltrated all world politics and control all financial systems. They have engineered the present financial crisis and they are responsible for the events of 9/11 and for the majority of false-flag events in recent history. Through war and other means, they are responsible for the hyper-poisoning of the planet.” Why they would be deliberately trying to undermine “all ecosystems” is a bit unclear, but Morgoth and Ungoliant, Skynet, the Harkonnens and the aliens in the classic documentary “They Live” have all been up to stuff like that before.
Diagnosis: Mike Adams, Sherri Tenpenny and Ken Adachi all rolled into one, only dumber (well … less influential, at least). A joke, really.