What a Tangled Web: American supporters of the Old European Fascists

Excerpts from research composed by Geoff Price.

Written: March 21, 2003 - April 18, 2003

Title: This War is about so much more

"A number of prominent and wealthy American businessmen helped to support fascist regimes in Europe from the 1920s through the 1940s. These people helped to support Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War of 1936, as well as Benito Mussolini, and Adolph Hitler."

"Some of the primary and more famous Americans and companies that were involved with the fascist regimes of Europe are: William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Kennedy (JFK’s father), Charles Lindbergh, John Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon (head of Alcoa, banker, and Secretary of Treasury), DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil (now Exxon), Ford, ITT, Allen Dulles (later head of the CIA), Prescott Bush, National City Bank, and General Electric."

"It should be noted that businessmen from many countries, including England and Australia, also worked with the fascist regimes of Europe prior to WWII. The fascist governments were involved in a high level of construction, production, and international business."

"I.G. Farben, a German company, was the largest chemical manufacturing enterprise in the world during the early part of the 20th century. As such the company had many holdings in a variety of countries, including America. The American holdings of I.G. Farben included Bayer Co., General Aniline Works, Agfa Ansco, and Winthrop Chemical Company."

"I.G. Farben was critical in the development of the German economy and war machine leading up to WWII. During this time I.G. Farben’s international holdings along with its international business contracts with companies like Standard Oil, DuPont, Alcoa, and Dow Chemical were crucial in supplying the Nazi regime with the materials needed for war as well as financial support."

"The Spanish Civil War was the precursor to World War II. Fascist Francisco Franco was aided by Hitler and Mussolini during the Spanish Civil War. At this time GM, Ford, DuPont, and Standard Oil were working with Franco and supplying the fascist powers of Europe. At this same time many Americans were protesting the goings on in Europe as well as the involvement of American companies in helping the fascist powers. A group of American volunteer soldiers known as the Abe Lincoln Brigade went to Spain during this time to fight against Franco in defense of the Spanish Republic. This group was made up primarily of leftist American groups, such as members of American socialist parties and communist parties."

"The success of the fascists in Spain was an important first step in the building of fascist power in Europe and the stepping-stone for the Italian and German powers."

"The support of American corporations, and lack of American intervention by the government, was crucial in the success of this first step."

"American banks and businesses continued to support the fascist regimes of Europe legally up until the day Germany declared war on America and the activities were stopped under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Despite this, some companies and individuals still maintained a business relationship with the Third Reich. Ford and GM supplied European fascists with trucks and equipment as well as investing money in I.G. Farben plants. Standard Oil supplied the fascists with fuel. US Steel and Alcoa supplied them with critically needed metals. American banks gave them billion's of dollars worth of loans."

"The following is excerpted from a report printed by the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1974:

The activities of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler prior to and during World War II...are instructive. At that time, these three firms dominated motor vehicle production in both the United States and Germany. Due to its mass production capabilities, automobile manufacturing is one of the most crucial industries with respect to national defense. As a result, these firms retained the economic and political power to affect the shape of governmental relations both within and between these nations in a manner which maximized corporate global profits. In short, they were private governments unaccountable to the citizens of any country yet possessing tremendous influence over the course of war and peace in the world. The substantial contribution of these firms to the American war effort in terms of tanks, aircraft components, and other military equipment is widely acknowledged. Less well known are the simultaneous contributions of their foreign subsidiaries to the Axis Powers. In sum, they maximized profits by supplying both sides with the materiel needed to conduct the war.

During the 1920's and 1930's, the Big Three automakers undertook an extensive program of multinational expansion...By the mid-1930's, these three American companies owned automotive subsidiaries throughout Europe and the Far East; many of their largest facilities were located in the politically sensitive nations of Germany, Poland, Rumania, Austria, Hungary, Latvia, and Japan...Due to their concentrated economic power over motor vehicle production in both Allied and Axis territories, the Big Three inevitably became major factors in the preparations and progress of the war. In Germany, for example, General Motors and Ford became an integral part of the Nazi war efforts. GM's plants in Germany built thousands of bomber and jet fighter propulsion systems for the Luftwaffe at the same time that its American plants produced aircraft engines for the U.S. Army Air Corps....

Ford was also active in Nazi Germany's prewar preparations. In 1938, for instance, it opened a truck assembly plant in Berlin whose "real purpose," according to U.S. Army Intelligence, was producing "troop transport-type" vehicles for the Wehrmacht. That year Ford's chief executive received the Nazi German Eagle (first class)....

The outbreak of war in September 1939 resulted inevitably in the full conversion by GM and Ford of their Axis plants to the production of military aircraft and trucks.... On the ground, GM and Ford subsidiaries built nearly 90 percent of the armored "mule" 3-ton half-trucks and more than 70 percent of the Reich's medium and heavy-duty trucks. These vehicles, according to American intelligence reports, served as "the backbone of the German Army transportation system."....

After the cessation of hostilities, GM and Ford demanded reparations from the U.S. Government for wartime damages sustained by their Axis facilities as a result of Allied bombing... Ford received a little less than $1 million, primarily as a result of damages sustained by its military truck complex at Cologne...

Due to their multinational dominance of motor vehicle production, GM and Ford became principal suppliers for the forces of fascism as well as for the forces of democracy. It may, of course, be argued that participating in both sides of an international conflict, like the common corporate practice of investing in both political parties before an election, is an appropriate corporate activity. Had the Nazis won, General Motors and Ford would have appeared impeccably Nazi; as Hitler lost, these companies were able to re-emerge impeccably American. In either case, the viability of these corporations and the interests of their respective stockholders would have been preserved.

"In 1940 Graeme K. Howard, Vice President of General Motors, published America and a New World Order, in which he advised that America give full cooperation to the Nazi regime. In his book he blames FDR for causing the war in Europe and goes on to say that the fascists should be supported as the better alternative to the spread of Communism."

"The du Ponts helped to finance the Black Legion. The Black Legion was a Nazi style group supported by the du Ponts who were supporters of the Nazi movement in Germany and fanatical followers of the Third Reich. The organization was an American anti-socialist group that used violence against union leaders and union members. They have been implicated in the murder of several members of workers groups who were working in support of workers rights and benefits. The Black Legion was reported to have over 1.5 million members in the United States and was a group that was opposed to the FDR administration and was supposedly working to overthrow the administration. The Black Legion also had ties with the Ku Klux Klan, which was also a pro-Nazi group. The American Liberty League was another such organization."

“This cult-type organization operated in the midwest in the 1930's supposedly to protect the country from various forms of "isms". Members wore black costumes with skull and crossbones insignia and were allegedly responsible for numerous murders.”

William Randolph Hearst is known as one of the largest media moguls of all time. During the 1930s he worked with the Nazi party to help promote a positive image of the Nazi party in American media. He also received loans from Italian fascists bankers during this time. The actions of Hearst were an important element in shaping American sentiment about not getting involved in the political situation in Europe as many Americans were led to believe that there was nothing terribly wrong going on in Europe, and even after the war started some Americans continued to support the Nazi regime based on the propaganda that they had been exposed to through Hearst media sources.

Below is an example of what was said about the Nazis in Hearst publications, in this case the Reader’s Digest, 1933:

"That Hitler’s conquest of the hearts and minds of all classes of Germans is now so complete that even if all his Brown Shirts and Steel Helmets were to be disbanded, tomorrow he would still be easily the strongest man in Germany, and on any appeal to the electorate would be confirmed in power by a quite overwhelming majority of votes.

Hitler is recognized by the whole of the political and official intelligentsia as an exceedingly able man. As of the militarist question: One may say with complete certainty that what Hitler said in his Reichstag speech on May 17 was exactly what he meant and accurately represents the policy that he will pursue.

I found no German who dreamed of the possibility of war, few who did not hope that it might be prevented in the future altogether. The truth is that the Nazi mind is concentrated on the internal problems of Germany and does not want to be bothered by foreign affairs for a long time to come.

Hitler has passed from the stage of party leader to being the national prophet of an exceedingly serious people, and it would need another prophet to replace him.“

- Clifford Sharp, former editor of the New Statesman writing in The New Statesman and Nation. Reprinted in Readers Digest, September, 1933

Here is a copy of a 1938 article published in Better Homes and Gardens, a Hearst publication:

In 1935 American Ambassador to Germany wrote to President Roosevelt about the extent of Hearst's dealings with the Nazis. (Click here to read)

In this letter it was stated:

"For this service Hearst was to receive $200,000 a year, and he at once began to bring pressure to bear on his correspondents to give only friendly accounts of what happened in Germany.”

“…I [reporter Karl von Wiegand] learned a little later that all my reports from Germany went directly to Hearst and were re-edited so as to fit the new program.”

“…he [Hearst] at the same time sent Dosch-Fleurot here from Paris to administer the service in such a way that it would always be friendly to the Hitler regime."

Hearst publications continued to present the fascist regimes in Europe in a positive light until America finally entered the war.

Perhaps one of the most egregious contributors to the Nazi cause was IBM under the direction of Thomas J. Watson.

IBM

IBM knowingly helped to setup Nazi census databases through the use of data sorting machines that enabled the Nazis to carry out the Holocaust in a way that they would not have otherwise been able to. Point blank, IBM increased the size and scope of the Holocaust, and did it for profit.

Not only this, but...

IBM leased the machines, which they had developed especially for the Nazis, to the regime with the intention of taking them back, "once they were finished with them".

Thomas Watson was awarded a medal by Adolph Hitler for his role in assisting in the Nazi regime, .and Watson expressed, "the necessity of extending a sympathetic understanding to the German people, and their leader Adolph Hitler." He also expressed "the highest esteem for Hitler, his country, and his people."

More on IBM and Thomas J. Watson can be found here: Site

Charles Lindbergh was perhaps the most vocal and public supporter of the fascists, especially the Germans. Lindbergh was not so much a financial supporter of the Nazis, as he was a public advocate for allying with Germany to fight against Communism and promote White racial superiority. Lindbergh attended the Olympics as a guest of the Nazis and in 1938 he was given the Service Cross of the German Eagle while attending a dinner party in Berlin. He founded the America First Committee in 1940 to build opposition to FDR and FDR's support for American entry into the war in Europe.

After American entry into World War II Lindbergh went to work for Henry Ford as an aircraft design consultant, and then went on to Japan to support American efforts in the Pacific. This was actually against the approval of the Roosevelt administration.

Henry Ford was an avowed anti-Semite, and significant contributor to the Nazi movement in Germany.

In 1920 Ford stated: "The international financiers are behind all war. They are what is called the International Jew -- German Jews, French Jews, English Jews, American Jews. I believe that in all these countries except our own the Jewish financier is supreme... Here, the Jew is a threat."

In the 1920s he published The International Jew. Hitler himself ordered many copies of this book and was said to keep a copy on his desk. It is easy to see why when reading the book, because the attack on the Jews is vehement. The book states:

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT?

Simply identify the source and nature of the influence which has overrun our schools and universities. Let the students know that their choice is between the Anglo-Saxons and the Tribe of Judah. Let the students decide, in making up their allegiance, whether they will follow the Builders or those who seek to tear down. It is not a case for argument. The only absolute antidote to the Jewish influence is to call college students back to a pride of race.

We often speak of the Fathers as if they were the few who happened to affix their signatures to a great document which marked a new era of liberty. The Fathers of our nation were the men of the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic race. The men who came from Europe with civilization in their blood and in their destiny. The men who crossed the Atlantic and set up civilization on a bleak and rock-bound coast; the men who drove north to Alaska and west to California; the men who opened up the tropics and subdued the arctics; the men who mastered the African veldt; the men who peopled Australia and seized the gates of the world at Suez, Gibraltar and Panama; men who have given form to every government and a livelihood to every people and an ideal to every century. They got neither their God nor their religion from Judah, nor yet their speech nor their creative genius- they are the Ruling People. Chosen throughout the centuries to Master the world, by building it ever better and better, and not by breaking it down.

Into the camp of this race, among the sons of the rulers, comes a people that has no civilization to point to, no aspiring religion, no universal speech, no great achievement in any realm but the realm of "get," cast out of every land that gave them hospitality, and these people endeavor to tell the Sons of the Saxons what is needed to make the world what it ought to be!

If our sons follow this counsel of dark rebellion and destruction, it is because they do not know whose sons they are, of what race they are the scions. Let there be free speech to the limit in our universities and free intercourse of ideas, but let Jewish thoughts be labeled Jewish, and let our sons know the racial secret...

NAME THE ENEMY!

...

Judah has begun the struggle. Judah has made the invasion. Let it come. Let no man fear it. But let every a man insist that the fight be fair. Let college students and leaders of thought know that the objective is the regnancy of the ideas and the race that have built all the civilization we see and that promises all the civilization of the future; let them also know that the attacking force is Jewish.

That is all that will be necessary. It is against this that the Jews protest. "You must not identify us," they say, "You must not use the term 'Jew'." Why? Because unless the Jewish idea can creep in under the assumption of other than Jewish origin, it is doomed. Anglo-Saxon ideas dare proclaim themselves and their origin. A proper proclamation is all that is necessary today. Compel every invading idea to run up its flag!


People today try to put all of this blame on Hitler, but it was not just Hitler, in fact the ideas of the Nazis were far more pervasive and were publicized by Henry Ford.

Why? Because he believed in an international Jewish conspiracy. Ford was more then just anti-Semitic, you can see by reading his publications that it went well beyond a matter of racism and not liking people. He viewed this, and many others did as well, as a war between the Anglo way of life and that of the Jews.

The hate that so many talk about in America today, it runs much deeper then many would imagine, and it is founded in much more substantial ideas then most would think as well.

Ford helped shape Hitler's views on the Jews, and those of many people around he world.

At the Nuremberg Trials Baldur Von Shirach claimed that Henry Ford was the primary inspiration for his anti-Semitism.

Shirach, a former Nazi youth leader, stated: "You have no idea what a great influence this book had on the thinking of the German youth…I read Henry Ford's book 'The International Jewry'…and became anti-Semitic."

[View Jewish Virtual Library]

Ford also made large personal contributions to Hitler's political campaigns. Hitler spoke of Ford in his speeches and had a portrait of Ford in his office.

In 1938 Henry Ford received the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle as a birthday present from Adolph Hitler. He was given the medal in his office in Michigan by two officials from the Third Reich, as seen below:

Ford never returned this medal, even after WWII. The head of IBM, who had also been given a medal from Hitler because he was a supporter of the Third-Reich, returned his medal after WWII, but Henry did not despite public outcry.

Overall, what is critical to recognize is that American corporations and wealthy individuals played an important part in the construction of the Nazi Empire and the various fascist groups of Europe leading up to World War II. Without American support it is doubtful that the fascist powers of Europe would have ever achieved their positions of power and been able to develop the military institutions necessary to wage the Second World War. Indeed Ford himself contributed not only monetarily but ideologically as well. It is important to note that America was still the wealthiest country in the world at that time even though America was also in a state of economic depression. Many of America’s wealthy were only mildly affected by the depression, if at all, and many of them were opposed to the FDR administration.

Important information about the ties between American businessmen and the fascist powers of Europe was communicated to FDR by the American Ambassador to Germany during the 1930s, William E. Dodd. His writings on the matter are of critical importance. He wrote about connections between Hearst and the Nazis as well as Hearst and the Italians, in addition to Nazi connections with other wealthy Americans.

“A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime. . . . “

"Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there."

- William E. Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, 1937

[Read writtings by William E Dodd Here

What is also critical to observe is that this information is not a part of standard American history. The fact that this information is not openly disclosed is very important from many perspectives.

For one, how can we as a people truly learn from history if we don’t know real history? We have to know what really happened if we are to learn to really prevent it from happening again.


For another, why is it that so many of America's largest corporations and most influential political officials have direct ties to the Nazi empire?

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Naga Fangzahne: What are your thoughts on this information? Share your comments.

Sugar-Coated Venom

Go here for your dose of sugar-coated venom.




Now a message from the President.

George Bush, Skull & Bones and the JFK Assassination

George Bush, Skull & Bones and the JFK Assassination

(c) Copyright Little Red Hen


Rodney Stich's book "Defrauding America" tells of a "deep-cover CIA officer" assigned to a counter-intelligence unit, code-named Pegasus. This unit "had tape-recordings of plans to assassinate Kennedy" from a tap on the phone of J. Edgar Hoover. The people on the tapes were "[Nelson] Rockefeller, Allen Dulles, [Lyndon] Johnson of Texas, George Bush and J. Edgar Hoover."

Could George Bush be involved in the JFK assassination?

In 1963, Bush was living in Houston, busily carrying out his duties as president of the Zapata Offshore oil company. He denied the existence of a note sent by the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover to "Mr. George Bush of the CIA." When news of the note surfaced, the CIA first said they never commented on employment questions, but later relented said yes, a "George Bush" was mentioned in the note, but that it was "another" George Bush, not the man who took office in the White House in 1988.

Some intrepid reporters tracked down the "other" George Bush and discovered that he was just a lowly clerk who had shuffled papers for the CIA for about six months. He never received any interagency messages from anybody at the FBI, let alone the Queen Mary.

It is also worth noting that a CIA code word for Bay of Pigs was Operation Zapata, and that two of the support vessels were named Barbara and Houston.

Many say that George Bush was high up on the CIA ladder at the time, running proprietorial vehicles and placed in a position of command, responsible for many of the Cubans recruited into "service" at the time. All through the Iran-Contra affair, Felix Rodriguez, the man who captured and had Che Guevara killed for the CIA, always seemed to call Bush's office first.

From The Realist (Summer, 1991)

"Bush was working with the now-famous CIA agent, Felix Rodriguez, recruiting right-wing Cuban exiles for the invasion of Cuba. It was Bush's CIA job to organize the Cuban community in Miami for the invasion.... A newly discovered FBI document reveals that George Bush was directly involved in the 1963 murder of President John Kennedy. The document places marksmen by the CIA. Bush at that time lived in Texas. Hopping from Houston to Miami weekly, Bush spent 1960 and '61 recruiting Cubans in Miami for the invasion....

"George Bush claims he never worked for the CIA until he was appointed Director by former Warren Commission director and then president Jerry Ford in 1976. Logic suggests that is highly unlikely. Of course, Bush has a company duty to deny being in the CIA. The CIA is a secret organization. No one ever admits to being a member. The truth is that Bush has been a top CIA official since before the 1961 invasion of Cuba, working with Felix Rodriguez. Bush may deny his actual role in the CIA in 1959, but there are records in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba that expose Bush's role..."

On the Watergate tapes, June 23, 1972, referred to in the media as the 'smoking gun' conversation, Nixon and his Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, were discussing how to stop the FBI investigation into the CIA Watergate burglary. They were worried that the investigation would expose their connection to 'the Bay of Pigs thing.' Haldeman, in his book "The Ends of Power", reveals that Nixon always used code words when talking about the 1963 murder of JFK. Haldeman said Nixon would always refer to the assassination as 'the Bay of Pigs'.

On that transcript we find Nixon discussing the role of George Bush's partner, Robert Mosbacher, as one of the Texas fundraisers for Nixon. On the tapes Nixon keeps referring to the 'Cubans' and the 'Texans.' The 'Texans' were Bush, Mosbacher and Baker. This is another direct link between Bush and evidence linking Nixon and Bush to the Kennedy assassination."

Motives for the Conspiracy

So, why would an intelligence agency/secret society want to smuggle drugs and assassinate JFK?

Well, they make a lot of money, and they garner intelligence assets through their participation. There's also the rationale that the world is a seamy and unseemly place, and if you're going to be the 'big boy' on the block, you better know what's going on. And what better way of knowing than by running it yourself? There are also some who theorize that the covert drug trade fits with plans to destabilize American families and society. Through demoralizing and fracturing the body politic, they can impose their will using psychological warfare and the political alchemy of the Hegellian dialectic.

James Shelby Downard's article, "Sorcery, Sex, Assassination and the Science of Symbolism ," an underground classic, links American historical events with a wild, numerological, grand occult plan "to turn us into cybernetic mystery zombies". The assassination of JFK, this article contends, was the performance of a public occult ritual called The Killing of the King, designed as a mass-trauma, mind-control assault against our U.S. national body-politic.

During Operation Sunrise, Operation Blowback, Operation Paperclip and others, thousands of Nazi scientists, researchers and administrators were brought to the United States after World War II. Many were "smuggled" into the country against direct, written, orders from President Harry S. Truman.

Project Monarch was the resumption of a mind-control project called Marionette Programming, which started in Nazi Germany. The basic component of the Monarch Program is the sophisticated manipulation of the mind, using extreme trauma to induce Multiple Personality Disorder.

Mr. Downward feels that the perpetrators purposefully murdered JFK in such a way as to affect our National identity and cohesiveness -- to fracture America's soul. Even the blatancy of their conspiracy was designed to show "their superiority" and "our futility".

There have been studies that show a correlation between the JFK assassination and the rise in violence in society, distrust of government and other extensions of social ills.

The Illuminati - Subverting the Body Politic

Why this attack against our body politic?

In 1785, a bolt of lightning struck a courier en route to Paris from Frankfort-on-the-Main. A tract written by Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Illuminati, "Original Shift in Days of Illuminations," was recovered from the dead messenger, containing the secret society's long-range plan for "The New World Order through world revolution".

The Bavarian Government outlawed the society and in 1787 published the details of The Illuminati conspiracy in "The Original Writings of the Order and Sect of the Illuminati."

In Adam Weishaupt's own words:


"By this plan, we shall direct all mankind in this manner. And, by the simplest means, we shall set all in motion and in flames. The occupations must be so allotted and contrived that we may, in secret, influence all political transactions."
There is disagreement among scholars as to whether or not the Illuminati survived its banishment. Nevertheless, the group had been quite successful in attracting members and had allied itself with the extensive Masonic networks.

The Illuminati was publicly founded May 1, 1776 at the University of Ingolstadt by Weishaupt, Professor of Canon Law. It was a very "learned" society; Weishaupt drew the earliest members of his new order from among his students.

On December 5, 1776, students at William and Mary College founded a secret society, Phi Beta Kappa. A second chapter was formed, at Yale, in 1780. The anti-Masonic movement in the United States during the 1820s held groups such as Phi Beta Kappa in a bad light. Because of pressure, the society went public. This is noted by some researchers as the direct cause of the appearance of Yale's Order of Skull and Bones.

In "The Cyclopedia Of Fraternities", a genealogical chart of general Greek-Letter college fraternities in the United States, shows Phi Beta Kappa as "the parent of all the fraternal systems in [American] higher education." There is only one "side" lineal descendant: the Yale chapter of 1780. The line then continues to Skull and Bones in 1832, and on through the other "only at Yale" senior societies, Scroll & Key and Wolf's Head.

Phi Beta Kappa is the "first three Greek letters, for 'Philosophia Biou Kubernetes' or 'Love of wisdom, the helmsman of life'." A skull homophone is scull, a quick, gliding boat and part of Skull & Bones first nomenclature.

John Robison, a professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University in Scotland and a member of a Freemason Lodge, said that he was asked to join the Illuminati. After study, he concluded the purposes of the Illuminati were not for him.

In 1798, he published a book called "Proofs Of A Conspiracy":


"An association has been formed for the express purpose of rooting out all the religious establishments and overturning all the existing governments.... the leaders would rule the World with uncontrollable power, while all the rest would be employed as tools of the ambition of their unknown superiors."
"Proofs of A Conspiracy" was sent to George Washington. Responding to the sender of the book with a letter, the president said he was aware the Illuminati were in America. He felt that the Illuminati had "diabolical tenets" and that their object was "a separation of the People from their government."

In "Proofs Of A Conspiracy", Robison printed the ceremony of initiation of the "Regent degree" in Illuminism. In it "a skeleton is pointed out to him [the initiate], at the feet of which are laid a crown and a sword. He is asked 'whether that is the skeleton of a king, nobleman or a beggar.' As he cannot decide, the president of the meeting says to him, 'The character of being a man is the only one that is importance'".

This is, essentially, the same as the writing in the Skull & Bones "tomb":


"Wer war der Thor, wer Weiser, Bettler oder Kaiser? Ob Arm, ob Reich, im Tode gleich."
Which reads:

"Who was the fool, who the wise man, beggar or king? Whether poor or rich, all's the same in death."

Is the Order of the Skull & Bones part of the Illuminati?

When a person is initiated into Skull & Bones, they are given a new name, similar to the practice of the Illuminati. And many recorded Illuminati members can be shown to have contact and/or strong influences with many of the professors that taught "Bonesmen" in Berlin.

When a secret society conspires against the sovereignty of a king, they need to organize, raise funds, make their plans operational, and hopefully bring them to fruition.

Could we have in the United States a secret society that has used the "National Security State" as a cover for their nefarious plans?

From "George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography"


"That September [1951], Robert Lovett replaced Marshall as secretary of defense. Meanwhile, Harriman was named director of the Mutual Security Agency, making him the U.S. chief of the Anglo-American military alliance. By now, Brown Brothers, Harriman was everything but commander-in-chief.
"A central focus of the Harriman security regime in Washington (1950-53) was the organization of covert operations and 'psychological warfare.' Harriman, together with his lawyers and business partners, Allen and John Foster Dulles, wanted the government's secret services to conduct extensive propaganda campaigns and mass-psychology experiments within the U.S.A., and paramilitary campaigns abroad....

"The Harriman security regime created the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB) in 1951. The man appointed director of the PSB [was] Gordon Gray.... Gordon's brother, R.J. Reynolds chairman Bowman Gray Jr., was also a naval intelligence officer, known around Washington as the 'founder of operational intelligence.' Gordon Gray became a close friend and political ally of Prescott Bush; and Gray's son became for Prescott's son, George, his lawyer and the shield of his covert policy."

So you have the Whitney/Stimson/Bundy clan and the Harriman/Bush boys wielding a tremendous amount of influence on the political, economic and social affairs of America and the world. Then you have Prescott Bush's buddy Richard Nixon as an activist vice-president. Then, a nation-chilling assassination, some time under LBJ with the Bundy boys keeping things in line, then Nixon as President with "Bonesmen" aides Ray Price ('51) and Richard A. Moore. Some time out for a Trilateralist-Democrat-patsy president, followed by Prescott's son as an activist vice-president under Reagan. Next, we get a Skull and Bones president who declares a "New World Order" while beating up on his business partner, Saddam Hussein.

After twelve years of Republican administrations, Bush passes the reins to his drug smuggling buddy from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, who studied at Yale Law School. According to some researchers, Clinton was recruited as a CIA operative while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Could this be the "old Hegallian historical dialectic process"?

World History: Plan or Accident?

Will we get another failed Democratic administration? A scandal as disgraceful as Nixon's fall? When Robert P. Johnson (William Barr) told Clinton in a bunker in Arkansas that "you are our fair-haired boy, but you do have competition for the job you seek. We would never put all our eggs in one basket. You and your state have been our greatest asset.... Mr. Casey wanted me to pass on to you, that unless you fuck up and do something stupid, you are number one on our short list for shot at the job you always wanted."

So, you have William Casey -- CIA Director, George Bush's campaign manager and Sovereign Knight of Malta -- speaking through the proxy of George Bush's last Attorney General to George's rival in the 1992 federal elections. Is it all just a show and sham for U.S. hoi polloi?

Perhaps so, if there exists the type of control over the electoral process as told by Mae Brussell and the suppressed book "VoteScam," written by Jim and Ken Collier:


"...Your vote and mine may now be a meaningless bit of energy directed by preprogrammed computers-which can be fixed to select certain pre-ordained candidates and leave no footprints or paper trail.
"In short, computers are covertly stealing your vote.

"--For almost three decades the American vote has been subject to government-sponsored electronic theft.

"--The vote has been stolen from you by a cartel of federal "national security" bureaucrats, who include higher-ups in the Central Intelligence Agency, political party leaders, Congressmen, co-opted journalists and the owners and managers -- of the major Establishment news media, who have decided in concert that how America's votes are counted, by whom they are counted and how the results are verified and delivered to the public is, as one of them put it, 'Not a proper area of inquiry.'

"--By means of an unofficial private corporation named News Election Service (NES), the Establishment press has actual physical control of the counting and dissemination of the vote, and it refuses to let the public know how it is done."

Is the American electorate subjected to cyclic propaganda, pre-selected candidates and winners, and psychological warfare to alienate Americans from the institutions established to serve them by the Constitution? Are the Democratic and Republican National Parties used for a Hegellian experiment in controlled conflict?

Pamela Churchill Harriman, Averil's wife, is one of the Democratic Party's biggest fund-raisers. She once gave Bill a job as director of her "PAM PAC" when he was defeated for governor in 1980. Bill paid her back by appointing her as Ambassador to France.

Another Harriman/Bush friend, Eugene Stetson ('34), was an assistant manager for Prescott Bush at Brown Brothers, Harriman's New York office. He organized the H. Smith Richardson Foundation. The foundation, in the late 1950s, participated in the MKULTRA, the CIA's domestic covert psychological warfare operation. The Richardson Foundation helped to finance the testing of psychotropic drugs, including LSD, at Bridgewater Hospital in Massachusetts, the center of some of the most brutal MK-ULTRA experiments.

During the Iran-Contra operations, the H. Smith Richardson Foundation was a "private donors steering committee," working with the National Security Council to co-ordinate the Office of Public Diplomacy. This was an effort to propagandize in favor of and run cover for the Iran-Contra operations, and to coordinate published attacks on opponents of the program.

The H. Smith Richardson Foundation also runs the Center for Creative Leadership at Langley to "train leaders of the CIA," as well as another center near Greensboro, North Carolina, that trains CIA and Secret Service Agents. Almost everyone who achieves the military rank of general also gets this training.

This is just the tip of an iceberg. You also have eugenics and population control, suppressed history and technology, yearly retreats, profitable partnerships with brutal dictators, deals with "terrorists", the involvement of the Knights of Malta, war-mongering and profiteering, mind-control, secret societies for teens, ritual magic and more -- all spinning the dark threads in the web of conspiracy that our spinning blue ball has gotten caught in.

We've got a whole new crop of "Bonesmen" coming up, including George H.W. Bush's son George W. Bush ('68), Governor of Texas.

When Don Schollander ('68), the Olympic gold-medalist and only known Skull and Bones member living in Portland, was contacted by Willamette Week reporter John Schrang regarding his involvement in the Order, he said, "It's really something I can't talk about."

Not wouldn't, but "couldn't".

In wake of Antony Sutton's first ground-breaking exposes of the Order, the Sterling Library at Yale has refused to allow any other researchers access to the Russell Trust papers.

Daniel Gilman, like most Bonesmen, makes no mention of Skull & Bones or the Russell Trust in his memoirs or biographies.

So, are we all just 'fodder" for a secret society with satanic overtones that is attempting to form a one world government with themselves at the helm? Or is the Order of Skull and Bones just a bunch of frat boys from Yale? Wanna bet your future on it?

(c) Copyright Little Red Hen

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In 2000 George W. Bush became President of the US. His actions seem part of a greater plan that takes humanity to its next evolution but bringing it full circle in the middle east. I see him as a pawn in a game.

It is now September 2004 - and all indications point to Bush be re-ellected though most people oppose his policies in all areas.

Bush Family Ties

Quoting several established sources in previous conversations since the 2004 elections, I passed along the buzz that George W. Bush was indeed related to Senator and presidential candidate John Kerry. You can read the full details here. (I also found it interesting that both of these men were related to Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner).

On the surface, the fact that both Bush and Kerry are blood relatives, cousins, may seem irrelevant. But in my own mind, I felt, well, lets just say, I felt a disturbance in the force.

From previous knowledge, I already knew that this was not the only way in which they are connected. CBS failed to mention in their pre=election article (perhaps elsewhere) that both men attended the prestigious Yale University. More importantly, that both men were members of a secret society, based on Yale campus, called the Skull & Bones. More on this later.

In John Loftus' and Mark Aarons' national bestselling book, The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People, they use 'literally thousands of previously top-secret documents and interviews with hundreds of current and former spies', to expose one of (in my opinion) the most clandestine family bloodlines and their hidden agendas--the Bush Family Dynasty.

In the midst of a war in the middle East, we should take time to reflect back in time, before 9/11. Before George "W" Bush. As early as 1994, when their book was published, Loftus and Aarons' point out that:

"In 1989 George H. Bush signed a top-secret order, National Security Directive #26, permitting the secret transfer of sensitive weapons technology to Iraq. Oil imports from Iraq climbed to 1,100,100 barrels a day in 1990. Billions of dollars' worth of loans guaranteed by American taxpayers went to Saddam Hussein, after U.S. intelligence reported that he was using money to build atomic and chemical weapons of genocide." p.491

The British link


"The British were brazen about sending arms to Iraq. One Whitehall aide wrote that "I doubt if there is any future market on such a scale anywhere where the UK is potentially so well placed." Iraq was "the big prize." More than six weeks after Saddam invaded Kuwait, the British government was still shipping large quantities of artillery shells to Jordan, with full knowledge that they would be diverted to Iraq. None of this secret history was made public at the time of the Gulf war." p. 491


The "Oil Men"

"It is a matter of public record that many former members of the Reagan-Bush administrations had such heavy investments in oil-companies that they had a clear conflict of interest in determining U.S. policy in the Middle East. As previously mentioned, George Bush secretly waived the Federal conflict of interest policy. Many members of his administration have enriched themselves in the Gulf states after leaving government service. Even Bush's son George Jr. was awarded a lucrative oil contract in the Gulf. No matter which side triumphed in the Gulf War, the oil men had won. To the victors go the spoils." p. 491


It should be further noted that:

Bush is closely related to every European monarch on and off the throne -- including the King of Albania -- and has kinship with every member of Britain's royal family, the House of Windsor.

He is a 13th cousin of Britain's Queen Mother, and of her daughter Queen Elizabeth and is a 13th cousin once removed of the heir to the throne, Prince Charles.
Bush's family tree can be documented as far back as the early 15th century.

He has a direct descent from Henry III and from Henry VIII's sister Mary Tudor, who was also the wife of Louis XI of France. He is also descended from Charles II of England.

Interestingly, much of the same can be said of John F. Kerry, and former opponent in the 2000 elections Al Gore!

The following is quoted from the Portland Independent Media Center
It is now clear that Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush have an unusually large number of royal and noble descents," said Harold Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burke's Peerage.

"In point of fact, never in the history of the United States have two presidential candidates been as well endowed with royal alliances."

Brooks-Baker said there had always been a significant "royalty factor" in those who aspired to the White House, with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, among others, all boasting blue blood links.

Democrat candidate Gore, who is currently lagging Bush by one point in opinion polls ahead of U.S. elections in November, has a less illustrious gene pool.

Being a descendant of Edward I, he is also a cousin of former U.S. president Richard Nixon, who resigned from the White House in 1974 for his part in the Watergate scandal.

But Gore does have direct links to the holy Roman Empire.

He is a descendant of Roman Emperors Louis II, Charles II and Louis I and is therefore also a direct descendant of Charlemagne -- the eight-century Emperor.

The problem is, Gore's Charlemagne links also make him a cousin of George W. Bush.

Click here to listen to what Bush has to say about his White House and his constituents.

More to come.
Any comments?

On January 2nd, 1939, Time Magazine named Adolf Hitler 'Man of the Year' for 1938.

Adolf Hitler, Time Magazines's 1938 Man of the Year

On January 2, 1939, Time Magazine published its annual Man of the Year issue. For the year 1938, Time had chosen Adolf Hitler as the man who "for better or worse" (as Time founder Henry Luce expressed it) had most influenced events of the preceding year. The cover picture featured Hitler playing "his hymn of hate in a desecrated cathedral while victims dangle on a St. Catherine's wheel and the Nazi hierarchy looks on." This picture was drawn by Baron Rudolph Charles von Ripper, a German Catholic who had fled Hitler's Germany.

The Man of the Year cover had been a Time tradition since 1927 when Charles Lindbergh became the first Man of the Year. Ironically, Lindbergh was an admirer of Hitler and Nazi Germany; he became active in the America First organization which opposed America entering World War II in the fight against Adolf Hitler.




The article about the 1938 Man of the Year in the January 2, 1939 issue of Time is quoted below:



January 2, 1939

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Adolf Hitler

Greatest single news event of 1938 took place on September 29, when four statesmen met at the Führerhaus, in Munich, to redraw the map of Europe. The three visiting statesmen at that historic conference were Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain, Premier Edouard Daladier of France, and Dictator Benito Mussolini of Italy. But by all odds the dominating figure at Munich was the German host, Adolf Hitler.



Führer of the German people, Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, Navy & Air Force, Chancellor of the Third Reich, Herr Hitler reaped on that day at Munich the harvest of an audacious, defiant, ruthless foreign policy he had pursued for five and a half years. He had torn the Treaty of Versailles to shreds. He had rearmed Germany to the teeth--or as close to the tooth as he was able. He had stolen Austria before the eyes of a horrified and apparently impotent world.



All these events were shocking to nations which had defeated Germany on the battlefield only 20 years before, but nothing so terrified the world as the ruthless, methodical, Nazi-directed events which during late summer and early autumn threatened a world war over Czechoslovakia. When without loss of blood he reduced Czechoslovakia to a German puppet state, forced a drastic revision of Europe's defensive alliances, and won a free hand for himself in Eastern Europe by getting a "hands-off" promise from powerful Britain (and later France), Adolf Hitler without doubt became 1938's Man of the Year.



Most other world figures of 1938 faded in importance as the year drew to a close. Prime Minister Chamberlain's "peace with honor" seemed more than ever to have achieved neither. An increasing number of Britons ridiculed his appease-the-dictators policy, believed that nothing save abject surrender could satisfy the dictators' ambitions.



Among many Frenchmen there rose a feeling that Premier Daladier, by a few strokes of the pen at Munich, had turned France into a second-rate power. Aping Mussolini in his gestures and copying triumphant Hitler's shouting complex, the once liberal Daladier at year's end was reduced to using parliamentary tricks to keep his job.



During 1938 Dictator Mussolini was only a decidedly junior partner in the firm of Hitler & Mussolini, Inc. His noisy agitation to get Corsica and Tunis from France was rated as a weak bluff whose immediate objectives were no more than cheaper tolls for Italian ships in the Suez Canal and control of the Djibouti-Addis Ababa railroad.



Gone from the international scene was Eduard Benes, for 20 years Europe's "Smartest Little Statesman." Last President of free Czechoslovakia, he was now a sick exile from the country he helped found. Pious Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Man of 1937, was forced to retreat to a "New" West China, where he faced the possibility of becoming only a respectable figurehead in an enveloping Communist movement. If Francisco Franco had won the Spanish Civil War after his great spring drive, he might well have been Man-of-the-Year timber. But victory still eluded the Generalissimo and war weariness and disaffection on the Rightist side made his future precarious.



On the American scene, 1938 was no one man's year. Certainly it was not Franklin Roosevelt's; his Purge was beaten and his party lost much of its bulge in the Congress. Secretary Hull will remember Good Neighborly 1938 as the year he crowned his trade treaty efforts with the British agreement, but history will not specially identify Mr. Hull with 1938. At year's end in Lima, his plan of Continental Solidarity for the two Americas had a few of its teeth pulled.



But the figure of Adolf Hitler strode over a cringing Europe with all the swagger of a conqueror. Not the mere fact that the Führer brought 10,500,000 more people (7,000,000 Austrians, 3,500,000 Sudetens) under his absolute rule made him the Man of 1938. Japan during the same time added tens of millions of Chinese to her empire. More significant was the fact Hitler became in 1938 the greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today.



His shadow fell far beyond Germany's frontier. Small, neighboring States (Denmark, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, The Balkans, Luxembourg, The Netherlands) feared to offend him. In France Nazi pressure was in part responsible for some of the post-Munich anti-democratic decrees. Fascism had intervened openly in Spain, had fostered a revolt in Brazil, was covertly aiding revolutionary movements in Rumania, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania. In Finland a foreign minister had to resign under Nazi pressure. Throughout eastern Europe after Munich the trend was toward less freedom, more dictatorship. In the U.S. alone did democracy feel itself strong enough at year's end to give Hitler his come-uppance.



The Fascintern, with Hitler in the driver's seat, with Mussolini, Franco and the Japanese military cabal riding behind, emerged in 1938 as an international, revolutionary movement. Rant as he might against the machinations of international Communism and international Jewry, or rave as he would that he was just a Pan-German trying to get all the Germans back in one nation, Führer Hitler had himself become the world's No. 1 International Revolutionist--so much so that if the oft-predicted struggle between Fascism and Communism now takes place it will be only because two revolutionist dictators, Hitler and Stalin, are too big to let each other live in the same world.



But Führer Hitler does not regard himself as a revolutionary; he has become so only by force of circumstances. Fascism has discovered that freedom--of press, speech, assembly--is a potential danger to its own security. In Fascist phraseology democracy is often coupled with Communism. The Fascist battle against freedom is often carried forward under the false slogan of "Down with Communism!" One of the chief German complaints against democratic Czechoslovakia last summer was that it was an "outpost of Communism."



A generation ago western civilization had apparently outgrown the major evils of barbarism except for war between nations. The Russian Communist Revolution promoted the evil of class war. Hitler topped it by another, race war. Fascism and Communism both resurrected religious war. These multiple forms of barbarism gave shape in 1938 to an issue over which men may again, perhaps soon, shed blood: the issue of civilized liberty v. barbaric authoritarianism.



Lesser men of the year seemed small indeed beside the Führer. Undoubted Crook of the Year was the late Frank Donald Coster (ne Musica), with Richard Whitney, now in Sing Sing Prison, as runner-up. Sportsman of the Year was Tennist Donald Budge, champion of the U.S., England, France, Australia. Aviator of the Year was 33-year-old Howard Robard Hughes, diffident millionaire, who flew a sober, precise, foolproof course 14,716 miles round the top of the world in three days, 19 hours, eight minutes.



Radio's Man of the Year was youthful Orson Welles who, in his famous The War of the Worlds broadcast, scared fewer people than Hitler, but more than had ever been frightened by radio before, demonstrating that radio can be a tremendous force in whipping up mass emotion. Playwright of the Year was Thornton Wilder, previously a precious litterateur, whose first play on Broadway, Our Town, was not only ingenious and moving, but a big hit. To Gabriel Pascal, producer of Pygmalion, first full-length picture based on the wordy dramas of George Bernard Shaw, went the title of Cineman of the Year for having discovered a rich mine of dramatic material when other famed producers had given up all hope of ever tapping it. Men of the Year, outstanding in comprehensive science were three medical researchers who discovered that nicotinic acid was a cure for human pellagra: Drs. Tom Douglas Spies of Cincinnati General Hospital, Marion Arthur Blankenhorn of the University of Cincinnati, Clark Niel Cooper of Waterloo, Iowa.



In religion, the two outstanding figures of 1938 were in sharp contrast save for their opposition to Adolf Hitler. One of them, Pope Pius XI, 81, spoke with "bitter sadness" of Italy's anti-Semitic laws, the harrying of Italian Catholic Action groups, the reception Mussolini gave Hitler last May, declared sadly: "We have offered our now old life for the peace and prosperity of peoples. We offer it anew." By spending most of the year in a concentration camp, Protestant Pastor Martin Niemöller gave courageous witness to his faith.



It was noteworthy that few of these other men of the year would have been free to achieve their accomplishments in Nazi Germany. The genius of free wills has been so stifled by the oppression of dictatorship that Germany's output of poetry, prose, music, philosophy,art has been meagre indeed.



The man most responsible for this world tragedy is a moody, brooding, unprepossessing, 49-year-old Austrian-born ascetic with a Charlie Chaplin mustache. The son of an Austrian petty customs official, Adolf Hitler was raised as a spoiled child by a doting mother. Consistently failing to pass even the most elementary studies, he grew up a half-educated young man, untrained for any trade or profession, seemingly doomed to failure. Brilliant, charming, cosmopolitan Vienna he learned to loathe for what he called its Semitism; more to his liking was homogeneous Munich, his real home after 1912. To this man of no trade and few interests the Great War was a welcome event which gave him some purpose in life. Hitler took part in 48 engagements, won the German Iron Cross (first class), was wounded once and gassed once, was in a hospital when the Armistice of November 11, 1918 was declared.



His political career began in 1919 when he became Member No. 7 of the midget German Labor Party. Discovering his powers of oratory, Hitler soon became the party's leader, changed its name to the National Socialist German Labor Party, wrote its anti- Semitic, anti-democratic, authoritarian program. The party's first mass meeting took place in Munich in February 1920. The leader intended to participate in a monarchist attempt to seize power a month later; but for this abortive Putsch Führer Hitler arrived too late. An even less successful National Socialist attempt--the famed Munich Beer Hall Putsch of 1923--provided the party with dead martyrs, landed Herr Hitler in jail. His incarceration at Landsberg Fortress gave him time to write the first volume of Mein Kampf, now a "must" on every German bookshelf. (Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess helped write it. Imprisonment also gave Hitler time to perfect his tactics. Even before that time he got from his Communist opponents the idea of gangster-like party storm troopers; after this the principle of the small cell groups of devoted party workers.)



Outlawed in many German districts, the National Socialist Party nevertheless climbed steadily in membership. Time-honored Tammany Hall methods of handing out many small favors were combined with rowdy terrorism and lurid, patriotic propaganda. The picture of a mystic, abstemious, charismatic Führer was assiduously cultivated.



Not until 1929 did National Socialism win its first absolute majority in a city election (at Coburg) and make its first significant showing in a provincial election (in Thuringia). But from 1928 on, the party almost continually gained in electoral strength. In the Reichstag elections of 1928 it polled 809,000 votes. Two years later 6,401,016 Germans voted for National Socialist deputies while in 1932 the vote was 13,732,779. While still short of a majority, the vote was nevertheless impressive proof of the power of the man and his movement.



The situation which gave rise to this demagogic, ignorant, desperate movement was inherent in the German Republic's birth and in the craving of large sections of the politically immature German people for strong, masterful leadership. Democracy in Germany was conceived in the womb of military defeat. It was the Republic which put its signature (unwillingly) to the humiliating Versailles Treaty, a brand of shame which it never lived down in German minds.

That the German people love uniforms, parades, military formations, and submit easily to authority is no secret. Führer Hitler's own hero is Frederick the Great. That admiration stems undoubtedly from Frederick's military prowess and autocratic rule rather than from Frederick's love of French culture and his hatred of Prussian boorishness. But unlike the polished Frederick, Führer Hitler, whose reading has always been very limited, invites few great minds to visit him, nor would Führer Hitler agree with Frederick's contention that he was "tired of ruling over slaves." (Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, also complained of the submissiveness of German character.)



In bad straits even in fair weather, the German Republic collapsed under the weight of the 1929-34 depression in which German unemployment soared to 7,000,000 above a nationwide wind drift of bankruptcies and failures. Called to power as Chancellor of the Third Reich on January 30, 1933 by aged, senile President Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor Hitler began to turn the Reich inside out. Unemployment was solved by: 1) a far-reaching program of public works; 2) an intense re-armament program, including a huge standing army; 3) enforced labor in the service of the State (the German Labor Corps); 4) putting political enemies and Jewish, Communist and Socialist jobholders in concentration camps.



What Adolf Hitler & Co. did to Germany in less than six years was applauded wildly and ecstatically by most Germans. He lifted the nation from post-War defeatism. Under the swastika Germany was unified. His was no ordinary dictatorship, but rather one of great energy and magnificent planning. The "socialist" part of National Socialism might be scoffed at by hard-&-fast Marxists, but the Nazi movement nevertheless had a mass basis. The 1,500 miles of magnificent highways built, schemes for cheap cars and simple workers' benefits, grandiose plans for rebuilding German cities made Germans burst with pride. Germans might eat many substitute foods or wear ersatz clothes but they did eat.



What Adolf Hitler & Co. did to the German people in that time left civilized men and women aghast. Civil rights and liberties have disappeared. Opposition to the Nazi regime has become tantamount to suicide or worse. Free speech and free assembly are anachronisms. The reputations of the once-vaunted German centres of learning have vanished. Education has been reduced to a National Socialist catechism.



Pace Quickened. Germany's 700,000 Jews have been tortured physically, robbed of homes and properties, denied a chance to earn a living, chased off the streets. Now they are being held for "ransom," a gangster trick through the ages. But not only Jews have suffered. Out of Germany has come a steady, ever- swelling stream of refugees, Jews and Gentiles, liberals and conservatives, Catholics as well as Protestants, who could stand Naziism no longer. TIME's cover, showing Organist Adolf Hitler playing his hymn of hate in a desecrated cathedral while victims dangle on a St. Catherine's wheel and the Nazi hierarchy looks on, was drawn by Baron Rudolph Charles von Ripper, a Catholic who found Germany intolerable.



Meanwhile, Germany has become a nation of uniforms, goose- stepping to Hitler's tune, where boys of ten are taught to throw hand grenades, where women are regarded as breeding machines. Most cruel joke of all, however, has been played by Hitler & Co. on those German capitalists and small businessmen who once backed National Socialism as a means of saving Germany's bourgeois economic structure from radicalism. The Nazi credo that the individual belongs to the state also applies to business. Some businesses have been confiscated outright, on other what amounts to a capital tax has been levied. Profits have been strictly controlled. Some idea of the increasing Governmental control and interference in business could be deduced from the fact that 80% of all building and 50% of all industrial orders in Germany originated last year with the Government. Hard-pressed for food- stuffs as well as funds, the Nazi regime has taken over large estates and in many instances collectivized agriculture, a procedure fundamentally similar to Russian Communism.



When Germany took over Austria she took upon herself the care and feeding of 7,000,000 poor relations. When 3,500,000 Sudetens were absorbed, there were that many more mouths to feed. As 1938 drew to a close many were the signs that the Nazi economy of exchange control, barter trade, lowered standard of living, "self-sufficiency," was cracking. Nor were signs lacking that many Germans disliked the cruelties of their Government, but were afraid to protest them. Having a hard time to provide enough bread to go round, Führer Hitler was being driven to give the German people another diverting circus. The Nazi controlled press, jumping the rope at the count of Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels, shrieked insults at real and imagined enemies. And the pace of the German dictatorship quickened as more & more guns rolled from factories and little more butter was produced.



In five years under the Man of 1938, regimented Germany had made itself one of the great military powers of the world today. The British Navy remains supreme on the seas. Most military men regard the French Army as incomparable. Biggest question mark is air strength, which changes from day to day, but most observers believe Germany superior in warplanes. Despite a shortage of trained officers and a lack of materials, the German Army has become a formidable machine which could probably be beaten only by a combination of opposing armies. As testimony to his nation's puissance, Führer Hitler could look back over the year and remember that besides receiving countless large-bore statesmen (Mr. Chamberlain three times, for instance), he paid his personal respects to three kings (Sweden's Gustaf, Denmark's Christian, Italy's Vittorio Emanuele) and was visited by two (Bulgaria's Boris, Rumania's Carol--not counting Hungary's Regent, Horthy).



Meanwhile an estimated 1,133 streets and squares, notably Rathaus Platz in Vienna, acquired the name of Adolf Hitler. He delivered 96 public speeches, attended eleven opera performances (way below par), vanquished two rivals (Benes and Kurt von Schuschnigg, Austria's last Chancellor), sold 900,000 new copies of Mein Kampf in Germany besides selling it widely in Italy and Insurgent Spain. His only loss was in eyesight: he had to begin wearing spectacles for work. Last week Herr Hitler entertained at a Christmas party 7,000 workmen now building Berlin's new mammoth Chancellery, told them: "The next decade will show those countries with their patent democracy where true culture is to be found."



But other nations have emphatically joined the armaments race and among military men the poser is: "Will Hitler fight when it becomes definitely certain that he is losing that race?" The dynamics of dictatorship are such that few who have studied Fascism and its leaders can envision sexless, restless, instinctive Adolf Hitler rounding out a mellow middle age in his mountain chalet at Berchtesgaden while a satisfied German people drink beer and sing folk songs. There is no guarantee that the have-not nations will go to sleep when they have taken what they now want from the haves. To those who watched the closing events of the year it seemed more than probable that the Man of 1938 may make 1939 a year to be remembered.

End of Article



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In a book of photos entitled "Hitler," edited by Herbert Walther and published in 1978 by Brompton Book Corporation, the photograph below appears with the caption "Hitler: Man of the Century." Walther wrote that "Hitler could still be regarded as the Man of the Century." However, Time chose Albert Einstein, a Jewish scientist who escaped from Nazi Germany in 1933, as its Man of the Century. The photograph here is from the book entitled "Hitler."

Any comments?

Introductory Note
History, and different perceptions of history, are perhaps the most important factors in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Accounts of history, interpreting history in different ways, are used to justify claims and to negate claims, to vilify the enemy and to glorify "our own" side. Dozens of accounts have been written. Most of the accounts on the Web are intended to convince rather than to inform.
This very brief account is intended as a balanced overview and introduction to Palestinian and Israeli history, and the history of the conflict. It is unlikely that anyone has written or will write an "objective" and definitive summary that would be accepted by everyone, but it is hoped that this document will provide a fair introduction.
It would be wrong to try to use this history to determine "who is right," though many "histories" have certainly been written by partisans of either side, with precisely that purpose in mind. Those who are interested in advocacy, in collecting "points" for their side, cannot find the truth except by accident. If they find it, and it is inconvenient, they will bury it again. This account intends to inform, and nothing more. Two separate documents explain how I think we should gather facts and learn about the conflict, and the importance of words in making Middle East history, as well as in understanding it. A timeline provides details of many events not discussed in this history, and source documents provide additional background. Serious students will also refer to the bibliography for more information and different viewpoints, and will always seek out primary source documents to verify whatever claims are made about those documents or about quotes from those documents.
Click here for a brief overview of issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Geography and Early History
The land variously called Israel and Palestine is a small, (10,000 square miles at present) land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. During its long history, its area, population and ownership varied greatly. The present state of Israel formally occupies all the land from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean ocean, bounded by Egypt in the south, Lebanon in the north, and Jordan in the East. The recognized borders of Israel constitute about 78% of the land. The remainder is divided between land occupied by Israel since the 1967 6-day war and the autonomous regions under the control of the Palestinian autonomy. The Gaza strip occupies an additional 141 square miles south of Israel along the sea coast, and is mostly under the control of the Palestinian authority with small areas occupied by Israeli settlements.
Palestine has been settled continuously for tens of thousands of years. Fossil remains have been found of Homo Erectus, Neanderthal and transitional types between Neanderthal and modern man. Archeologists have found hybrid Emer wheat at Jericho dating from before 8,000 B.C., making it one of the oldest sites of agricultural activity in the world. Amorites, Canaanites, and other Semitic peoples related to the Phoenicians of Tyre entered the area about 2000 B.C. The area became known as the Land of Canaan. (Click here for historical maps and some details of early history)
(Click here for books about Israel & Palestine before 1918 )
The Jewish Kingdoms
The archeological record indicates that the Jewish people evolved out of native Cana'anite peoples and invading tribes. Some time between about 1800 and 1500 B.C., it is thought that a Semitic people called Hebrews (hapiru) left Mesopotamia and settled in Canaan. Canaan was settled by different tribes including Semitic peoples, Hittites, and later Philistines, peoples of the sea who are thought to have arrived from Mycenae, or to be part of the ancient Greek peoples that also settled Mycenae.
According to the Bible, Moses led the Israelites, or a portion of them, out of Egypt. Under Joshua, they conquered the tribes and city states of Canaan. Based on biblical traditions, it is estimated that king David conquered Jerusalem about 1000 B.C. and established an Israelite kingdom over much of Canaan including parts of Transjordan. The kingdom was divided into Judea in the south and Israel in the north following the death of David's son, Solomon. Jerusalem remained the center of Jewish sovereignty and of Jewish worship whenever the Jews exercised sovereignty over the country in the subsequent period, up to the Jewish revolt in 133 AD.
The Assyrians conquered Israel in 722 or 721 B.C. The Babylonians conquered Judah around 586 B.C. destroyed Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, and exiled a large number of Jews. About 50 years later, the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylonia. Cyrus allowed a group of Jews from Babylonia to rebuild Jerusalem and settle in it. However, a large number of Jews remained in Babylonia, forming the first Jewish Diaspora. After the reestablishment of a Jewish state or protectorate, the Babylonian exiles maintained contact with authorities there. The Persians ruled the land from about 530 to 331 B.C. Alexander the Great then conquered the Persian Empire. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., his generals divided the empire. One of these generals, Seleucus, founded a dynasty that gained control of much of Palestine about 200 B.C. At first, the new rulers, called Seleucids, allowed the practice of Judaism. But later, one of the kings, Antiochus IV, tried to prohibit it. In 167 B.C., the Jews revolted under the leadership of the Maccabeans and either drove the Seleucids out of Palestine or at least established a large degree of autonomy, forming a kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem. The kingdom received Roman "protection" when Judah Maccabee was made a "friend of the Roman senate and people" in 164 B.C. according to the records of Roman historians.
From Roman to Ottoman Rule
About 61 B.C., Roman troops under Pompei invaded Judah and sacked Jerusalem. The land came under Roman control. The Romans called the area Judea. Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem in the early years of Roman rule. Roman rulers put down Jewish revolts in about A.D. 70 and A.D. 132. In A.D. 135, the Romans drove the Jews out of Jerusalem. The Romans named the area Palaestina, at about this time. The name Palaestina, which became Palestine in English, is derived from Herodotus, who used the term Palaistine Syria to refer to the entire southern part of Syria, meaning "Philistine Syria." Most of the Jews who continued to practice their religion fled or were forcibly exiled from Palestine, eventually forming a second Jewish Diaspora. However, Jewish communities continued to exist in Galilee, the northernmost part of Palestine. Palestine was governed by the Roman Empire until the fourth century A.D. (300's) and then by the Byzantine Empire. In time, Christianity spread to most of Palestine. The population consisted of Jewish converts to Christianity and paganism, peoples imported by the Romans, and others who had probably inhabited Palestine continuously.
During the seventh century (A.D. 600's), Muslim Arab armies moved north from Arabia to conquer most of the Middle East, including Palestine. Muslim powers controlled the region until the early 1900's. The rulers allowed Christians and Jews to keep their religions. However, most of the local population gradually accepted Islam and the Arab-Islamic culture of their rulers. Jerusalem became holy to Muslims as the site where, according to tradition, Muhammed ascended to heaven after a miraculous overnight ride on his horse Al-Buraq. The al-Aqsa mosque was built on the site generally regarded as the area of the Jewish temples.
The Seljuk Turks gained control of Jerusalem in 1071. Seljuk rule of Palestine lasted less than 30 years. In 1098, the Fatimids, based in Egypt, took advantage of the Seljuk struggles with the Christian crusaders from Europe. They allied themselves with the Crusaders and captured Jerusalem, Jaffa and other parts of Palestine in 1098. However, the Crusaders broke the alliance and invaded Palestine about a year later, capturing Jaffa and Jerusalem in 1099. A great slaughter of the Jewish and Muslim defenders followed, and no Jews were allowed to live in Jerusalem. The crusaders held the city until 1187, when the Muslim ruler Saladin attacked Palestine and took control of Jerusalem. The Crusaders held a dwindling area along the coast of Palestine, under treaty with Saladin. However, the Crusaders broke the treaty with Saladin and later treaties as successive crusades tried to recapture Jerusalem and were defeated. The Crusaders were finally evicted with the capture of Acre by Muslim forces in 1291. During the post-crusade period, Crusaders raided the coast of Palestine frequently. To minimize the gains from these raids, the Muslim rulers pulled back population from the coasts and practiced a scorched earth policy. The result was to greatly depopulate and impoverish the coast of Palestine for hundreds of years.
In the mid-1200's, Mamelukes, originally soldier-slaves of the Arabs, based in Egypt established an empire that in time included the area of Palestine. Arab-speaking Muslims made up most of Palestine's population. Beginning in the late 1300's, Jews from Spain and other Mediterranean lands settled in Jerusalem and other parts of the land. The Ottoman Empire defeated the Mamelukes in 1517, and Palestine became part of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish Sultan invited Jews fleeing the Catholic inquisition to settle in the Turkish empire, including several cities in Palestine.
In 1798, Napoleon entered the land. The war with Napoleon and subsequent misadministration by Egyptian and Ottoman rulers, reduced the population of Palestine. Arabs and Jews fled to safer and more prosperous lands. Revolts by Palestinian Arabs against Egyptian and Ottoman rule at this time may have helped to catalyze Palestinian national feeling. Subsequent reorganization and opening of the Turkish Empire to foreigners restored some order. They also allowed the beginnings of Jewish settlement under various Zionist and proto-Zionist movements. Both Arab and Jewish population increased. By 1880, about 24,000 Jews were living in Palestine, out of a population of about 400,000. At about that time, the Ottoman government imposed severe restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchase. These were evaded in various ways by Jews seeking to colonize Palestine.
The Rise of Zionism - In the nineteenth century, the emancipation of Jews in Europe and nationalist ideas were blended with traditional Jewish ideas about Israel and Zionism. The marriage of "love of Zion" with modern nationalism took place first among the Sephardic (Spanish and Eastern) Jewish community of Europe, where the tradition of living in the land of the Jews and return to Zion had remained practical goals rather than messianic aspirations, and where Hebrew was a living language. Rabbi Yehuda Alcalay, who lived in what is now Yugoslavia, published the first Zionist writings in the 1840s. Though practically forgotten, these ideas took root among a few European Jews. Beginning in the late 1800's, oppression of Jews in Eastern Europe catalyzed emigration of Jews to Palestine. The Zionist movement became a formal organization in 1897 with the first Zionist congress in Basle, organized by Theodore Herzl. Herzl's grandfather was acquainted with the writings of Alcalay, and it is very probable that Herzl was influenced by them. The Zionists wished to establish a "Jewish Homeland" in Palestine under Turkish or German rule. They were not concerned about the Arab population, which they ignored, or thought would agree to voluntary transfer to other Arab countries. In any case, they envisioned the population of Palestine by millions of European Jews who would soon form a decisive majority in the land. The Zionists established farm communities in Palestine at Petah Tikva, Zichron Jacob, Rishon Letzion and elsewhere. Later they established the new city of Tel Aviv, north of Jaffa. At the same time, Palestine's Arab population grew rapidly. By 1914, the total population of Palestine stood at about 700,000. About 615,000 were Arabs, and 85,000 to 100,000 were Jews. (See population figures). Click here for books about Zionism
World War I - During World War I (1914-1918), the Ottoman Empire joined Germany and Austria-Hungary against the Allies. An Ottoman military government ruled Palestine. The war was hard on both Jewish and Arab populations, owing to outbreaks of cholera and typhus, however, it was more difficult for the Jews. For a time, the Turkish military governor ordered internment and deportation of all foreign nationals. A large number of Jews were Russian Nationals. They had been able to enter Palestine as Russian nationals because of the concessions Turkey had granted to Russian citizens, and they had used this method to overcome restrictions on immigration. They had also maintained Russian citizenship to avoid being drafted into the Turkish army. Therefore, large number of Jews were forced to flee Palestine during the war. A small group founded the NILI underground that fed intelligence information to the British, in order to free the land of Turkish rule. The Turks eventually caught members of the NILI group, but the information they provided is said to have helped the British invasion effort.
Britain and France planned to divide the Ottoman holdings in the Middle East among themselves after the war. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 called for part of Palestine to be under British rule, part to be placed under a joint Allied government, and for Syria and Lebanon to be given to the France. However, Britain also offered to back Arab demands for postwar independence from the Ottomans in return for Arab support for the Allies and seems to have promised the same territories to the Arabs. In 1916, Arabs led by T.E. Lawrence and backed by Sharif Husayn revolted against the Ottomans in the belief that Britain would help establish Arab independence in the Middle East. The Arabs later claimed that Palestine was included in the area promised to them, but the British denied this.
The British Mandate
The Balfour Declaration - In November 1917, before Britain had conquered Jerusalem and the area to be known as Palestine, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. The declaration was a letter addressed to Lord Rothschild, based on a request of the Zionist organization in Great Britain. The declaration stated Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, without violating the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities. The declaration was the result of lobbying by the small British Zionist movement, especially by Dr. Haim Weizmann, who had emigrated from Russia to Britain, but it was motivated by British strategic considerations. Paradoxically, perhaps, a major motivation for the declaration may have been the belief, inspired by anti-Semitism, that international Jewry would come to the aid of the British if they declared themselves in favor of a Jewish homeland, and the fear that the Germans were about to issue such a declaration.
After the war, the League of Nations divided much of the Ottoman Empire into mandated territories. The British and French saw the Mandates as instruments of imperial ambitions. US President Wilson insisted that the mandates be constructed to foster eventual independence. The British were anxious to keep Palestine away from the French, and decided to ask for a mandate that would implement the Jewish national home of the Balfour declaration, a project that would be supported by the Americans. The Arabs opposed the idea of a Jewish national home, considering that the areas now called Palestine were their land. The Arabs felt they were in danger of dispossession by the Zionists, and did not relish living under Jewish rule. Arabs lobbied the American King-Crane commission, in favor of annexation of the Palestine mandate area to Syria, and later formed a national movement to combat the terms of the Mandate. At the instigation of US President Wilson, the King Crane commission had been dispatched to hear the views of the inhabitants. At the commission hearings, Aref Pasha Dajani expressed this opinion about the Jews, "Their history and their past proves that it is impossible to live with them. In all the countries where they are at present, they are not wanted...because they always arrive to suck the blood of everybody..."
By this time, Zionists had recognized the inevitability of conflict with the Palestinian Arabs. David Ben Gurion, who would lead the Yishuv (the name for the Jewish community in Palestine) and go on to be the first Prime Minister of Israel, told a meeting of the governing body of the Jewish "Yishuv" (community) in 1919 "But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question...We as a nation, want this country to be ours, the Arabs as a nation, want this country to be theirs."
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The Zionists and others presented their case to the Paris Peace conference. Ultimately, the British plan was adopted. The main issues taken into account were division of rights between Britain and France, rather than the views of the inhabitants.
In 1920, Britain received a provisional mandate over Palestine, which would extend west and east of the River Jordan. The area of the mandate (see map at right) given to Britain at the San Remo conference was much larger than historic Palestine as envisaged by the Zionists, who had sought an eastern border to the West of Amman. The mandate, based on the Balfour declaration, was formalized in 1922. The British were to help the Jews build a national home and promote the creation of self-governing institutions. The mandate provided for an agency, later called "The Jewish Agency for Palestine" that would represent Jewish interests in Palestine to the British and to promote Jewish immigration. A Jewish agency was created only in 1929, delayed by the desire to create a body that represented both Zionist and non-Zionist Jews. The Jewish agency in Palestine became in many respects the de-facto government of the Jewish Yishuv (settlement community).

In 1922, the British declared that the boundary of Palestine would be limited to the area west of the river. The area east of the river, called Transjordan (now Jordan), was made a separate British mandate and eventually given independence (See map at Right) . A part of the Zionist movement felt betrayed at losing part of what they termed "historic Palestine" to Transjordan, and split off to form the "revisionist" movement, headed by Benjamin Ze'ev Jabotinsky.
The British hoped to establish self-governing institutions in Palestine, as required by the mandate. The Jews were alarmed by the prospect of such institutions, which would have an Arab majority. However, the Arabs would not accept proposals for such institutions if they included any Jews at all, and so no institutions were created. The Arabs wanted as little as possible to do with the Jews and the mandate, and would not participate in municipal councils, nor even in the Arab Agency that the British wanted to set up. Ormsby-Gore, undersecretary of state for the colonies concluded, "Palestine is largely inhabited by unreasonable people."

Arab Riots and Jewish immigration - In the spring of 1920, spring of 1921 and summer of 1929, Arab nationalists opposed to the Balfour declaration, the mandate and the Jewish National Home, instigated riots and pogroms against Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, Jaffa and Haifa. he violence led to the formation of the Hagana Jewish self-defense organization in 1920. The riots of 1920 and 1921 reflected opposition to the Balfour declaration and fears that the Arabs of Palestine would be dispossessed, and were probably attempts to show the British that Palestine as a Jewish National home would be ungovernable. The major instigators were Haj Amin El-Husseini, later Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and Arif -El Arif, a prominent Palestinian journalist. The riots of 1929 occurred against the background of Jewish-Arab nationalist antagonism, and were also fueled by false rumors that the Jews intended to build a synagogue at the wailing wall, or otherwise encroach upon the Muslim rule over the Temple Mount compound, including the Al-Aqsa mosque. The pogroms led to evacuation of the Jewish community of Hebron. About half the 5,000 residents of the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem were forced to flee as well. The British responded with the Passfield White Paper, attempting to stop immigration to Palestine based on the recommendations of the Hope-Simpson report, which stated that in the best case, following extensive economic development, the land could support immigration of another 20,000 families in total, otherwise further Jewish immigration would infringe on the position of the existing Arab population. However, British MPs and the Zionist movement sharply criticized the new policy and PM Ramsay McDonald issued a "clarification" stating that Jewish immigration would not be stopped.
Jewish immigration swelled in the 1930s, driven by persecution in Eastern Europe, even before the rise of Nazism. Large numbers of Jews began to come from Poland owing to discriminatory laws and harsh economic conditions. The rise of Hitler in Germany added to this tide of immigration. The Jewish Agency made a deal, the Hesder, that allowed Jews to escape Germany to Palestine in return for hard currency that the Reich needed. The Hesder saved tens of thousands of lives.
Arab Revolt and the White Paper - In 1936 widespread rioting, later known as the Arab Revolt broke out. The revolt was led by Husseini family and apparently financed by Nazi Germany. Hundreds of Arabs and Jews were killed in the revolt, which spread rapidly owing to initial unpreparedness of the British authorities. The Husseini family killed both Jews and members of Palestinian Arab families opposed to their hegemony. The Yishuv responded with both defensive measures, and with random terror and bombings of Arab civilian targets, perpetrated by the Irgun (Irgun Tsvai Leumi or "Etsel,"). Etsel was the military underground of the right-wing dissident "revisionist group" headed first by Vladimir Jabotinsky, who seceded from the Zionist movement, and later by Menahem Begin. In later years, the British took drastic and often cruel steps to curtail the riots. Husseini fled to Iraq and then to Nazi Germany, where he subsequently broadcast for the Axis powers and organized SS death squads in Yugoslavia. The Peel and Woodhead commissions of 1937 and 1938 recommended partitioning Palestine into a small Jewish state and a large Arab one. The commissions recommendations also included voluntary transfer of Arabs and Jews to separate the populations. The Jewish leadership considered the plan but the Arab leadership rejected the plan outright. In response to the riots, the British began limiting immigration and the 1939 White Paper decreed that 15,000 Jews would be allowed to enter Palestine each year for five years. Thereafter, immigration would be subject to Arab approval.
The Holocaust - During World War II (1939-1945), many Palestinian Arabs and Jews joined the Allied forces. Jews had a special motivation for fighting the Nazis. In 1941 the British freed Jewish Haganah underground leaders in a general amnesty, and they joined the British in fighting the Germans. After the war, it was discovered that the Germans had murdered about six million Jews in Europe, in the Holocaust. These people had been trapped in Europe, because virtually no country would give them shelter. The British restriction of immigration to Palestine had cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The Jews were now desperate to bring the remaining Jews of Europe, about 250,000 people being held in displaced persons camps, to Palestine. The Haganah attempted to bring immigrants into Palestine illegally. The Zionist underground groups, in particular the Irgun and Lehi ("Stern gang") dissident terrorist groups, used force to try to drive the British out of Palestine by bombings and by kidnapping and murder of British personnel. The US and other countries brought pressure to bear on the British to allow immigration. An Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry recommended allowing 100,000 Jews to immigrate immediately to Palestine. The Arabs brought pressure on the British to block such immigatation. The British found Palestine to be ungovernable and returned the mandate to the United Nations, successor to the League of Nations. The report of the Anglo-American Committee provided a detailed summary of the British mandate period and the security situation in Palestine, as well as a report on the effects of the Holocaust and the condition of European Jewry.
Partition - The United Nations Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) recommended that Palestine be divided into an Arab state and a Jewish state. The commission called for Jerusalem to be put under international administration The UN General Assembly adopted this plan on Nov. 29, 1947 as UN Resolution (GA 181), owing to support of both the US and the Soviet Union, and in particular, the personal support of US President Harry S. Truman. Many factors contributed to Truman's decision to support partition, including domestic politics and intense Zionist lobbying, no doubt. Truman wrote in his diary, however, "I think the proper thing to do, and the thing I have been doing, is to do what I think is right and let them all go to hell."
The Jews accepted the UN decision, but the Arabs rejected it. The resolution divided the land into two approximately equal portions in a complicated scheme with zig-zag borders (see Partition Map). The intention was an economic union between the two states with open borders. At the time of partition, slightly less than half the land in all of Palestine was owned by Arabs, slightly less than half was "crown lands" belonging to the state, and about 8% was owned by Jews or the Jewish Agency. There were about 600,000 Jews in Palestine, almost all living in the areas allotted to the Jewish state or in the internationalized zone of Jerusalem, and about 1.2 million Arabs. The allocation of land by Resolution 181 was intended to produce two areas with Jewish and Arab majorities respectively. Jerusalem and environs were to be internationalized. The relatively large Jewish population of Jerusalem and the surroundings, about 100,000, were geographically cut off from the rest of the Jewish state, separated by a relatively large area, the "corridor," allotted to the Palestinian state. The corridor included the populous towns of Lod and Ramla and the smaller towns of Qoloniyeh, Emaus, Qastel and others which guarded the road to Jerusalem. (Click for Large Detailed Map)
It soon became evident that the scheme could not work. Mutual antagonism would make it impossible for either community to tolerate the other. The Arab League, at the instigation of Haj Amin Al-Husseini, declared a war to rid Palestine of the Jews. In fact however, the Arab countries each had separate agendas. Abdullah, king of Jordan, had an informal and secret agreement with Israel, negotiated with Golda Meir, to annex the portions of Palestine allocated to the Palestinian state in the West Bank, and prevent formation of a Palestinian state. Syria wanted to annex the northern part of Palestine, including Jewish and Arab areas.
During the period before Israeli independence was declared, two armies of Arab irregular volunteers, let by Haj Amin El Husseini in the Jerusalem area, and by Fawzi El Kaukji in the Galilee, placed their fighters in Arab towns and conducted various aggressive operations against the Jewish towns and village under the eyes of the British. Kaukji and his irregulars were allowed into Palestine from Syria by the British, with the agreement that he would not engage in military actions, but he soon broke the agreement and attacked across the Galilee. The Arab irregulars were met by the Zionist underground army, the Haganah, and by the underground groups of the "dissident" factions, Irgun and Lehi.
In Jerusalem, Arab riots broke out on November 30 and December 1 1947. Palestinian irregulars cut off the supply of food, water and fuel to Jerusalem during a long siege that began in late 1947. Fighting and violence broke out immediately throughout the country, including ambushes of transportation, a Palestinian attempt to blockade Jewish Jerusalem, riots such as the Haifa refinery riots, and massacres that took place at Gush Etzion and in Deir Yassin. Arab Palestinians began leaving their towns and villages to escape the fighting. Notably, most of the Arab population of Haifa left in March and April of 1948, despite pleas by both Jewish and British officials to stay.
The British did little to stop the fighting, but the scale of hostilities was limited by lack of arms and trained soldiers on both sides. It is generally agreed that April 1948 marked a turning point in the fighting, in favor of the initially outnumbered and outgunned Jewish forces. In the center, the Haganah mounted its first full scale operation, Operation Nahshon, which attacked the Arab villages of Qoloniyah and Qastel on the road to Jerusalem and temporarily broke the siege, allowing convoys of supplies to reach the city. Qastel fell on April 8, and the key Palestinian military commander, Abdel Khader Al-Husseini was killed there.In the north, Fawzi El-Kaukji's "Salvation Army" was beaten back at the battle of Mishmar Haemeq on April 12 1948. These successes helped convince US President Truman that the Jews would not be overrun by Arab forces, and he abandoned the trusteeship proposal that the US had put before the UN earlier. Following attacks by Arab irregulars, the Irgun attacked the Arab town of Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv. Palestinians fled en masse despite the pleas of the British to remain.
1948- 2000
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The War of Independence - 1948 War - On May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independent State of Israel, and the British withdrew from Palestine. In the following days and weeks, neighboring Arab nations invaded Palestine and Israel (click here for map). The fighting was conducted in several brief periods, punctuated by cease fire agreements ( truces were declared June 11 to July 8, 1948 and July 19- October 15, 1948). Palestinian attempts to set up a real state were blocked by Egypt and Jordan. Jordan kept to its agreement not to invade areas allocated to the Jewish state, but Syria and Egypt did not. In his book, "In the Fields of Phillistia," Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery recounts how the Egyptian army attempted a massed armored strike against Tel Aviv. The strike was turned back by a few recently arrived Messerchmidt aircraft, bought from Czechoslovakia. While Jordan did not invade Jewish territory, the Arab Legion blocked convoys to besieged Jewish Jerusalem from its fortified positions in Latroun. Jerusalem was to have been internationalized according to UN General Assembly Resolution 181 and UN General Assembly Resolution 303. Despite initial setbacks, better organization and intelligence successes, as well as timely clandestine arms shipments, enabled the Jews to gain a decisive victory. The underground armies of the Haganah, Palmah, Irgun and Lehi were amalgamated into a single national fighting force, the Israel Defense Force (IDF). The revisionist Irgun movement attempted to bring a shipload of arms into Israel on a ship called the Altalena, in order to maintain a separate fighting force. Israeli PM Ben Gurion ordered the IDF to sink the Altalena when Irgun leader Menahem Begin refused to give up its cargo of arms.
The Jordanian positions at Latroun could not be overcome despite three bloody attacks. To get around them, the Israelis built a "Burma Road' that was completed in June of 1948 and broke the siege of Jerusalem. A cease fire in June gave all sides time to regroup and reorganize. The Israelis took advantage of the cease fire to reorganize and recruit and train soldiers. The Palestinians and Arabs did not. A large shipment of arms intended for the Palestinians was blocked by the IDF/Haganah and never reached Syria.
The Syrians made some advances into the territory that had been allotted to the Palestinian state. The Egyptians had attempted to cut off the Negev from the rest of Israel, but were isolated in the "Faluja" pocket in central Israel. Israel took the war with the Egyptians to their territory and entered the Sinai peninsula. The IDF was forced to withdraw after encounters with British aircraft.
In the center, the IDF cut a swath of land to open the "corridor" between Jerusalem and the rest of Israel. During the "ten days" period of fighting between the two truces, they invaded the Arab towns of Lod and Ramla that had been blocking the road to Jerusalem and expelled most of the Palestinians living there, after killing a large number. They destroyed numerous small Palestinian villages surrounding Tel-Aviv, so that virtually no Palestinians were left in central Israel. (Click here for a map of Palestine before 1948)
The Arabs and Palestinians lost their initial advantage when they failed to organize and unite. When the fighting ended in 1949, Israel held territories beyond the boundaries set by the UN plan - a total of 78% of the area west of the Jordan river. The UN made no serious attempt to enforce the internationalization of Jerusalem, which was now divided between Jordan and Israel, and separated by barbed wire fences and no man's land areas. Click here to view a map of the UN plan for Jerusalem and Jerusalem as divided under the armistice agreements. The rest of the area assigned to the Arab state was occupied by Egypt and Jordan. Egypt held the Gaza Strip and Jordan held the West Bank. About 726,000 Arabs fled or were driven out of Israel and became refugees in neighboring Arab countries. The Arab countries refused to sign a permanent peace treaty with Israel. Consequently, the borders of Israel established by the armistice commission never received de jure (legal) international recognition.
The UN arranged a series of cease-fires between the Arabs and the Jews in 1948 and 1949. UN GA Resolution 194 called for cessation of hostilities and return of refugees who wish to live in peace. Security Council Resolution 62 called for implementation of armistice agreements that would lead to a permanent peace. The borders of Israel were established along the "green line" of the armistice agreements of 1949. (Click here for a map of the armistice lines (so called "green line") . These borders were not recognized by Arab states, which continued to refuse to recognize Israel. Though hostilities ceased, the refugee problem was not solved. Negotiations broke down because Israel refused to readmit more than a small number of refugees. The USSR, initially in favor of the Zionist state, now aligned itself with the Arab countries. Despite continued US support for the existence of Israel, US aid to Israel was minimal and did not include military aid during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were equipped with surplus arms purchased third hand and with French aircraft and light armor. The Arab countries, especially Syria and Egypt, began receiving large quantities of Soviet military aid. The Arab League instituted an economic boycott against Israel that was partly honored by most industrial nations and continued in force until the 1990s.
The Sinai Campaign - Following the overthrow of King Farouk of Egypt by the free officers headed by Naguib and Nasser, Egypt made some moves toward peace with Israel. However, in 1954, an Israeli spy ring was caught trying to blow up the US Information agency and other foreign institutions in Egypt. The goal was to create tension between the US and Egypt and prevent rapprochement. In Israel, both Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon and Prime Minister David Ben Gurion disclaimed responsibility for the action, and blamed each other. This incident came to be known variously as "the Lavon affair" and "the shameful business." (click here for details). Egypt became suspicious of Israeli intentions, and began negotiating to purchase large quantities of arms. When they were turned down by the West, the Egyptians turned to the Eastern bloc countries and concluded a deal with Czechoslovakia. Egyptian President Gamal Nasser also closed the straits of Tiran and Suez Canal to Israeli shipping. Israeli strategists believed that Egypt would go to war or force a diplomatic showdown as soon the weapons had been integrated, and began looking for a source of arms as well. Israel concluded an arms deal with France. A series of border incursions by Palestinians and by Egyptians from Gaza evoked increasingly severe Israeli reprisals, triggering larger raids. The assessment of Israeli "activists" like Moshe Dayan was that Israel should wage preventive war before Egypt had fully integrated the new weapons.
In the summer of 1956, Israel, France and Britain colluded in a plan to reverse the nationalization of the Suez canal. Israel would invade the Sinai and land paratroopers near the Mitla pass. Britain and France would issue an ultimatum, and then land troops ostensibly to separate the sides. The plan was carried out beginning October 29, 1956. Israel swiftly conquered Sinai. The US was furious at Israel, Britain and France. UN General Assembly Resolution 997 called for immediate withdrawal. Israeli troops remained in Sinai for many months. Israel subsequently withdrew under pressure from the UN and in particular the United States. Israel obtained guarantees that international waterways would remain open to Israeli shipping from the US, and a UN force was stationed in Sinai.

Sinai Campaign - Map
The 1967 6-Day War - Tension began developing between Israel and Arab countries in the 1960s. Israel began to implement its National Water Carrier plan, which pumps water from the Sea of Galilee to irrigate south and central Israel. The project was in accordance with a plan proposed by US envoy Eric Johnston in 1955, and agreed to by Arab engineers. Arab governments refused to participate however, because of the implied recognition of Israel. In secret meetings, Israel and Jordan agreed to abide by the water quotas set by the plan. In several summit conferences beginning in 1964, Arab leaders decided on establishment of the PLO, declared their resolve to destroy Israel, and decided to divert the sources of the Jordan river that feed the Sea of Galilee, to prevent Israel from implementing the water carrier plan. The Syrians and Lebanese began to implement the diversions. Israel responded by firing on the tractors and equipment doing the work in Syria, using increasingly accurate and longer range guns as the Syrians moved the equipment from the border. This was followed by Israeli attempts to cultivate the demilitarized zones (DMZ) as provided in the armistice agreements. Israel was within its rights according to the armistice agreements, but Moshe Dayan claimed many years later that 80% of the incidents were deliberately provoked. The Syrians responded by firing in the DMZs (Click here for a map of the demilitarized zones). When Israelis responded in force, Syria began shelling Israeli towns in the north, and the conflict escalated into air strikes. The USSR was intent on protecting the new Ba'athist pro-Soviet government of Syria, and represented to the Syrians and Egyptians that Israel was preparing to attack Syria. As tension rose, Syria appealed to Egypt, believing the claim of the USSR that Israel was massing troops on the Syrian border. The claim was false and was denied by the UN.
Against this background, in Mid-May, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser began making bellicose statements. On May 16, 1967, a Radio Cairo broadcast stated: "The existence of Israel has continued too long. We welcome the Israeli aggression. We welcome the battle we have long awaited. The peak hour has come. The battle has come in which we shall destroy Israel." On the same day, Egypt asked for the withdrawal of the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) from Sinai and the Gaza Strip. UN Secretary General U Thant agreed to remove the troops on May 18. Formally, the troops could only be stationed in Egypt with Egyptian agreement. However, for a long time it was believed that Nasser had really hoped U Thant would not remove the troops, and that he could use the presence of the UN troops as an excuse to do nothing.
On May 23, Nasser closed the straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. The United States failed to live up to its guarantees of freedom of the waterways to Israel. A torrent of bellicose rhetoric issued from Arab capitals and in the UN. At the UN, PLO Chairman Ahmed Shukhairy announced that "if it will be our privilege to strike the first blow" the PLO would expel from Palestine all Zionists who had arrived after 1917 and eliminate the state of Israel. In a speech to Arab Trade Unionists on May 26, 1967, Nasser justified the dismissal of the UNEF, and made it clear that Egypt was prepared to fight Israel for Palestinian rights. He also attacked the Jordanians as tools of the imperialists, stepping up the constant pressure on Jordan's King Hussein.
Despite the bellicose rhetoric, analysts such as Avi Shlaim (The Iron Wall) and others believe that each country was dragged into the conflict by inter-Arab rivalry and did not contemplate a war. Nasser never intended to attack Israel. He had been dragged into the conflict by Soviet maneuvers and Syrian fears and his need to claim leadership of the Arab world according to them. Be that as it may, according to Michael Oren, recently declassified documents reveal that the Egyptians in fact planned to attack Israel on May 28, 1948. The plan, codenamed operation Dawn, was discovered by Israel. The Israelis told the Americans. US President Johnson told Soviet Premier Kosygin, and Kosygin wrote to Nasser. Nasser understood that he had lost the element of surprise and called off the attack. Nonetheless, on May 29, 1967, Nasser was still speaking of confrontation with Israel. He told members of the Egyptian National Assembly, "God will surely help and urge us to restore the situation to what it was in 1948."
On May 30, Jordan signed a defense pact with Egypt, readying itself for war. King Hussein stated: "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel...to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations."
On June 4, Iraq likewise joined a military alliance with Egypt and committed itself to war. On May 31, the Iraqi President Rahman Aref announced, "This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear--to wipe Israel off the map."
US and Israel assessments were that Israel would win any war handily, despite the huge superiority in armor, aircraft, and troops favoring the combined forces of the Arab countries. On paper, Israel had almost as many aircraft as the Egyptians, but the Israeli aircraft were mostly old, and even the Super-Mirages were no match for the Mig-21 fighters acquired by Egypt from the USSR. On paper, the IDF had a large number of "tanks" matching or almost matching the arms of the Arab countries. However, while Syrians and Egyptians were equipped with late model Soviet heavy tanks, most of the Israeli "tanks" were in fact tiny French AMX anti-tank vehicles, and the heavy tanks were refurbished WWII Sherman tanks fitted with diesel engines. The Israeli and Jewish public, and some in the government, believed that there was a mortal threat to Israel. Thousands of graves were dug in Tel Aviv public parks in anticipation of the heavy casualties.
Israel probably did not want war, and some at least were fearful of war. Ben Gurion berated Chief of Staff Itzhak Rabin for making aggressive moves that had, according to him, escalated the conflict and gotten Israel into trouble. Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol appeared hesitant, and stuttered in a dramatic radio speech to the nation. Under great public pressure from opposition parties, a unity government was formed. Foreign Minister Abba Eban tried in vain to obtain from the US a guarantee that they would reopen the straights of Tiran. At first, President Johnson promised an international flotilla, and warned Israel not to attack on its own. However, the US was unable to initiate any international action, and reversed its position, hinting broadly that Israel would have to handle the problem itself.
Israel attacked the Egyptians beginning on June 5, 1967. In the first hours of the war, Israel destroyed over 400 enemy aircraft to achieve total air superiority. Israeli troops quickly reconquered the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza. Jordanian artillery began firing at Jerusalem on the first day of the war, despite a warning by Israeli PM Levi Eshkol to stay out of the war, and then the Jordan Legion advanced and took over the headquarters of the UN (Governor's house - Armon Hanatziv ) in Jerusalem. After warning King Hussein repeatedly to cease fire, Israel conquered the West Bank and Jerusalem. During the first days of the war, Syrian artillery based in the Golan Heights pounded civilian targets in northern Israel. After dealing with Egypt, Israel decided to conquer the Golan heights, despite opposition and doubts of some in the government, including Moshe Dayan, who had been appointed defense minister. (see map of territories occupied in 1967) and despite the fact that the UN had already called for a cease fire. Israel agreed to a cease fire on June 11, 1967. UN Resolution 242 called for negotiations of a permanent peace between the parties, and for Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied in 1967.
The 1967 6-Day war changed the perceived balance of power in the Middle East and created a new reality. Israel had acquired extensive territories - the Sinai Desert, the Golan heights and the West Bank, that were several times larger than the 1948 borders. (Click here to view a map of Israeli borders after the 6 day war). Nasser had been able to attribute the Egyptian defeat in 1956 to British and French support of the Israelis. Though he tried to blame the 1967 defeat on support supposedly given by the US Sixth fleet, this was clearly untrue.
According to analysts such as Fouad Ajami, the disastrous defeat of the Arabs spelled the end of the Pan-Arab approach advocated by Gamal Abdul Nasser and contributed to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. It also brought about a million Palestinian Arabs under Israeli rule. After the war, the fate of the Palestinians came to play a large role in the Arab-Israeli struggle. The Fatah organization (The Movement for Liberation of Palestine) was founded about 1957 (though it was formalized much later), and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) was founded in 1964. Both had the declared aim of destroying Israel. After the 6-day war, Ahmad Shukairy, who had headed the PLO, was replaced as Chairman by Yasser Arafat, who headed the Fatah. In time, the Palestine Liberation Organization became recognized by all the Arab states as the representative of the Palestinian people. Israel strongly opposed the PLO because of its terrorist acts against Jews and because of its charter aims of destroying the state of Israel and expelling Jews who had arrived after 1917.
The Israeli government originally declared that it was ready to return all of the territories except Jerusalem in return for peace treaties with its Arab neighbors. However, religious and nationalist groups began agitating for annexation and settlement of areas in the West Bank and Golan heights. By July 1967, Yigal Alon had submitted his "Alon Plan" which called for Israeli retention of large parts of the West Bank in any peace settlement for strategic reasons. An increasing number of settlements were established as it became evident that Arab states would not negotiate with Israel. A decisive turning point was the Khartoum Arab summit, in August and September of 1967, which seemed to shut the door on the possibility of negotiations with Israel or recognition of Israel in any form. A second landmark was the "Zionism is Racism" resolution passed by the United Nations in 1975, which gave credibility in Israel to claims of Israeli extremists that opposition to settlements was opposition to Israel, and that Israel was essentially alone in a hostile world and could expect no justice. Though the resolution was repealed in 1991, similar sentiments surfaced at a UN conference in Durban in 2001.
Settlement expansion became official Israeli policy after the opposition revisionist Likud party came to power in 1977, and continued during the Oslo accords. As of 2003, about 220,000 Israelis had settled in areas of the West Bank and Gaza, and an additional 200,000 were settled in areas of Jerusalem and environs conquered in 1967. About 15,000 Jews were settled in the Golan heights taken from Syria. (Click for Map of Israeli West Bank Settlements-2002)
The War of Attrition - Egyptian president Nasser launched the war of attrition on the Suez canal, breaking the cease fire. In Israel, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol had died and was replaced by the hawkish Golda Meir. The sides fought to a standstill in increasingly bloody exchanges that included participation by Soviet pilots on the Egyptian side. Under US pressure, a second cease fire was signed in August 1970, with both sides declaring officially their acceptance of UN Resolution 242. Nasser died shortly thereafter, and was replaced by Anwar Sadat. Sadat tried repeatedly to interest Israel in partial peace deals in return for partial Israeli withdrawal, and the US and UN tried to mediate peace through the offices of Gunnar Jarring. Nothing came of these peace efforts, partly owing to the stubborn attitude of Israeli PM Golda Meir, who insisted that Israeli troops would not budge until there was a peace agreement in place. Sadat continued to alternate peace plans with threats of war, but he was not taken seriously in Israel. Israeli army intelligence as well as the government were convinced that Israel had total military superiority and that Egypt would not dare to attack until it had rebuilt its army. Therefore, the best course seemed to be to wait until the Arab countries met Israel's terms.
The October War (Yom Kippur War) - In October 1973, Egypt and Syria launched another war against Israel, after the Israeli government headed by Golda Meir rebuffed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's offers to negotiate a settlement. The Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal on the afternoon of October 6, Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar. The Israeli government had ignored repeated intelligence warnings. They were convinced that Israeli arms were a sufficient deterrent to any aggressor. Sadat had twice announced his intention to go to war, but nothing had happened. When the intelligence reports were finally believed, on the morning of the attack, PM Meir and Defense Minister Dayan decided not to mobilize reserves.
The Israelis were caught by surprise in more ways than one. Egyptians poured huge numbers of troops across the canal unopposed and began setting up beachhead. The Israel Army had neglected basic maintenance tasks and drill. As troops mustered, it became apparent that equipment was missing and tanks were out of commission. The line of outposts built as watch posts along the Suez canal - the Bar Lev line, was used instead as a line of fortifications intended to hold off the Egyptians as long as possible. A tiny number of soldiers faced the Egyptian onslaught and were wiped out after stubborn resistance. The Soviets had sold the Egyptians new technology - better surface to air missiles (SAM) and hand held Sager anti-tank weapons. Israel had counted on air power to tip the balance on the battlefield, and had neglected artillery. But the air-force was initially neutralized because of the effectiveness of SAM missiles, until Israel could destroy the radar stations controlling them. Futile counterattacks continued in Sinai for several days as Israeli divisions coped with traffic jams that prevented concentration of forces, and with effective Egyptian resistance.
Meanwhile, less than 200 Israeli tanks were left guarding the Golan heights against far superior numbers. Syrians made serious and at first unopposed inroads in the Golan as Egyptians crossed the Suez canal and retook a strip of the Sinai peninsula. After suffering heavily losses, Israel reconquered the Golan. Click for map of Syrian Front
In Sinai, Israel troops crossed the canal. General Ariel Sharon, disobeying the orders of cautious superiors, ran ahead of logistics and support to develop the bridgehead on the Egyptian side of the Suez canal, and to cut off the entire Egyptian third army. Click for map of Egyptian front Cease-fires ended most of the fighting within a month. About 2,700 Israeli soldiers and 8,500 Arab soldiers died in the war As a result of the war, the Golda Meir was forced to resign as Prime Minister in Israel, making way for Izhak Rabin, who had been Israeli ambassador to the US and previously Chief of staff of the IDF.
Peace With Egypt - Subsequent shuttle diplomacy by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger resulted in partial Israeli withdrawals from the Sinai peninsula, under much less favorable terms than could have been obtained before the war. Right-wing opposition leader Menahem Begin was adamant in his opposition to any withdrawals. However, in 1978, Egypt led by Anwar Sadat, and Israel, now led by Menahem Beigin, signed the Camp David framework agreements, leading to a Peace treaty in 1979. Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982.
The 1982 War in Lebanon (Peace for the Galilee) - A revolt by the PLO against the Jordanian government led to their expulsion from Jordan in 1970. PLO fighters streamed into Lebanon and turned it into a base for attacks on Israel. The Syrians entered Lebanon beginning in 1976 ostensibly to protect the Christians and the fragile Lebanese multi-ethnic multi-religious constitution, but in fact, in realization of Syrian claims to Lebanon as part of Greater Syria. An Israeli invasion in 1982 resulted in expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon to Tunis. The invasion was the initiative of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who had decided to smash the power of the PLO. However, the war aroused furor in Israel as the army exceeded the official war aims, and brought down the wrath of the international community on Israel after right-wing Lebanese Phalangist militia allied to Israel committed massacres in the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camps. Israel subsequently extricated itself slowly from Lebanon, but the war had created a fanatic Shi'ite anti-Israel terror group in Lebanon, the Hizbolla. As Israel withdrew, Lebanon became essentially a satellite of Syria.
The First Intifada and the start of the Oslo Process - While the fortunes of the PLO waned, Palestinians in the occupied territories took their fate into their own hands. Beginning in 1987, a revolt called the Intifadeh began in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Following the Gulf war, US pressure, the ongoing break up of the USSR and favorable international opinion made it possible to convene negotiations toward settlement of the Palestinian problem. In 1993 and 1995, Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Declaration of Principles and The Oslo Interim Agreement. Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994. The peace process with the Palestinians led to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and most cities and towns of the West Bank by early 1996. As the Israelis withdrew, Palestinians took control of these areas. About 97% of the Palestinians in these areas were nominally under Palestinian rule, but the area controlled by the Palestine National Authority amounted to about 8% of the land. In January 1996, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian-controlled parts of the West Bank elected a legislature controlled by the Fatah faction, with Yasser Arafat as Chairman (titled "Rais" - "President" by the Palestinians) to administer these areas.
The Second Intifada - Negotiations for a final settlement ended in deadlock July, 2000. Palestinians insisted that refugees should have the right to return to Israel, which would produce an Arab majority in Israel. Israel insisted on annexing key portions of the Palestinian areas and on leaving most settlements intact, and offered only a limited form of Palestinian statehood. Palestinian violence erupted on September 28, 2000, triggered by a visit of Ariel Sharon to the temple mount in Jerusalem, which is also the site of the Al-Aqsa mosque holy to Muslims. In negotiations at Taba, Palestinians rejected a settlement offer mediated by President Clinton, and shortly thereafter, Israeli PM Barak, who had furthered the peace process, was voted out of office and replaced by a right wing government headed by Ariel Sharon.
Violence continued into 2001 and 2002, despite attempts by the Mitchell commission and others to restore calm. The terror attack on the World Trade Center in the US on September 11, 2001, had direct repercussions for the Israel-Palestine conflict. On the one hand, Arab and Islamic countries tried to leverage on the need for their cooperation in the war against terror to win concessions against Palestine. On the other, many Americans began to view terrorist actions in a new light, as organizations such as Hamas and Hizbulla came to be linked with the Al-Qaeda group of Osama Bin-Laden. Particularly damaging for the Palestinians were the demonstrations held in favor of Bin Laden, and evidence linking a boatload of illegal arms intercepted by Israel, the Karine A, with Iranian support for the PNA. The boat was intercepted on January 3, 2002, on the day that US envoy Anthony Zinni arrived to attempt to arrive at a settlement. Against this background, the US and EU seemed to give Israel wider latitude for action against the Palestinians. Israel made increasing incursions into Palestinian areas, and confined PNA Chairman Arafat to his compound in Ramalah. but the Palestinians stepped up attacks on soldiers as well as suicide bombings.
The Saudi Peace Proposal and the Palestinian State Resolution - Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah made a dramatic proposal to end the long Arab war against Israel in return for Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories, withdrawal in the Golan and appropriate arrangements regarding Jerusalem and the refugees. This proposal, modified to be more specific about refugee issues, was adopted by a meeting of the Arab League, and eventually became incorporated in the quartet roadmap plan. On March, 12, 2002 the UN Security Council passed resolution 1397, calling on the sides to stop the violence once again, mentioning the peace plan of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, and for the first time calling for creation of a Palestinian State alongside Israel.
Operation Defensive Wall - Meanwhile however, terror and suicide attacks and Israeli reprisals continued. Yasser Arafat declared a cessation of violence several times, but this did not seem to affect the frequency or severity of suicide bombings and ambushes. The Israelis, for their part, continued with their policy of assassinating wanted men in the Palestinian areas. During the last week in March, as General Zinni was again coming to the Middle East, the Palestinians launched a successful suicide attack almost every day, in addition to many unsuccessful ones. A blast at the Park Hotel in Nethanya killed 27 people as they were celebrating Passover. Israel launched a massive raid intended to root out terror infrastructure, including reoccupation of Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm and other towns. Hundreds of Palestinians may have been killed, including many reported civilian casualties. Israel alleges that only about 50 were killed in Jenin, mostly members of the Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs suicide brigades. These figures appear to be borne out by independent sources, but they are not accepted or believed in the Arab world. Suicide attacks abated, but did not stop. During the course of the fighting, Israel captured numerous documents demonstrating that Yasser Arafat had personally approved the organization of terror cells, and that the PNA treasury had approved payments for suicide-bomber explosive belts. The Israelis captured or killed numerous persons suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. The IDF also destroyed records, building, roads and other innocent civilian infrastructure of banks, NGOs and other organizations clearly not involved in terror. Later in the fighting, the IDF managed to locate Marwan Barghouti, head of the Fatah Tanzeem, and to capture him. Israel claims it has evidence of complicity by Barghouti in numerous terrorist acts, and it plans to put him on trial. Critics of the Israeli military operation, called "Defensive Wall," argued that it would be impossible to put an end to terror by military activity in the absence of progress toward a peaceful solution.
The violence continued despite the arrival of US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who needed quiet in Israel and Palestine to leave the US free hand to organize an alliance against Iraq. Powell's mission did not accomplish anything. He was unable to get the Israelis to withdraw completely from they areas reoccupied, nor could he get the Palestinians to agree to a cease fire. Demonstrations and public outrage in Arab countries, fueled by charges of a massacre, prompted UN action. UN resolution 1402 directed that Israel withdraw from the territories immediately. By the time Powell had left, Israel had withdrawn from some towns, but Yasser Arafat was still imprisoned in Ramallah, and the Israelis were besieging the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where armed Palestinians had sought refuge from the IDF. The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1403, expressing dismay that resolution 1402 had not been implemented. Palestinians charged that the Israelis had committed a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp. On April 19, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1405, calling for an an impartial investigative team to be send to determine the truth of Palestinian allegations. Israel objected to the composition of the team. Israel at first agreed to the investigation, but later backtracked and blocked it, claiming that the composition and procedures of the investigation would be unfair to Israel, and that the UN had reneged on initial agreements about the investigation. Opposition to the investigation was fueled by Israeli memories of the recent Durban conference as well as by the infamous Zionism is Racism resolution of the UN, which was recalled repeatedly in public debate. Israeli PM Ariel Sharon visited the US in May of 2002, under pressure from the US administration to advance a peace program that could be acceptable to Palestinians and the Arab states. The two discussed plans for a regional summit to be held later in 2002, and the Israelis presented documents that they claim prove the involvement of Yasser Arafat and the PNA in terrorist activities. News of a suicide bombing committed by the Hamas came while Bush and Sharon were meeting, causing the Israeli PM to cut the visit short and return to Israel.
The sieges of Muqata and Church of Nativity were also resolved in May 2002. Militants in the Church of Nativity were exiled to Cyprus and Europe. The wanted men in the Muqata compound in Ramalah were jailed in Jericho. The head of the PFLP allegedly coordinated a suicide attack from his cell in Jericho. At the end of May, under pressure for democratic reform, Yasser Arafat signed into law the Basic Law or constitution of the Palestinian transitional state. The law states that Palestinian law will be based on the principles of Islamic law (Sha'ariyeh).
In June, following another wave of Palestinian suicide attacks, Israeli forces essentially reoccupied all of the West Bank, though the Israeli government was quick to claim that the re-occupation would not continue indefinitely, but later indicated otherwise. President Bush made a long awaited speech on Middle East policy calling for a Palestinian state, but insisting on democratic reform of the Palestine National Authority.
In August and September 2002, several attempts at Palestinian cease fire initiatives were foiled by refusal of extremist groups to participate and by Israeli acts such as the killing of Salah Shehadeh, head of the military wing of the Hamas in a missile attack on Gaza that cost the lives of 13 civilians. Shehadeh was replaced by Mohamed Deif. August and September witnessed a six week respite from major suicide and terror attacks, facilitating an Israeli-Palestinian plan to return full Palestinian authority in Gaza and Bethlehem first. However, this fizzled after several violent attacks in Gaza. At the beginning of September, Israeli security forces foiled several suicide attack attempts and detected a truck laden with 1300 pounds of explosives and gas tanks, that was to be used by Palestinians in a suicide attack.
The PLC convened in September to approve the new cabinet chosen in line with reform efforts. PLC cabinet members refused to ratify the cabinet until Yasser Arafat would allow a Prime Minister to share power. Instead, Arafat agreed to elections in January, 2003, despite Israeli occupation. Arafat's popularity was at a nadir.
The period of relative calm came to an end with suicide bombings in Umm El Fahm and in a Tel-Aviv bus. The Israeli government proceeded with an attack on Gaza including entry into Gaza city and besieged Yasser Arafat and an estimated 200 others in the Muqata compound in Ramala. Israel demanded that Palestinians give up wanted persons who had taken refuge in the Muqata including Palestinian preventive security boss Tawfiq Tirawi. Arafat remained defiant. Israel destroyed all buildings in the compound except the main one, promising not to harm Arafat. After a rumor was spread that Israel was about to blow up the Muqata, widespread demonstrations took place in the West Bank and Gaza, resulting in four deaths. The USA exerted pressure on Israel to stop destroying buildings in the Muqata and to withdraw. Despite a UN resolution, Israel continued the siege. Arafat's popularity with Palestinians soared. Eventually, the siege was lifted, but Arafat remained confined to Ramalla and isolated. A second siege was reinstituted in the fall. (Click here for commentary on the Muqata Siege)
In April of 2002, the US government initiated a series of consultations with a group of diplomats that became known as the "Quartet." The quartet evolved a roadmap for a settlement, including Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories and establishment of a Palestinian state.
In October of 2002, the Labor party withdrew from the Israel unity government. PM Ariel Sharon initiated immediate elections, to be held January 28. Ariel Sharon's Likud Party won a sweeping mandate to continue hard line policies against the Palestinians. The Israel Labor party refused to form a unity government. Israel continued to occupy most of the West Bank.
During this period, the US continued to mass forces for an invasion of Iraq, and the US and quartet partners continued to advance the quartet road map for middle east peace. The quartet partners and especially the US pressured the Palestinians to commit to a thoroughgoing reform of their government that would eliminate corruption and support for terror. It was proposed that Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen) would assume the post of Prime Minister, overshadowing and displacing the still-popular Yasser Arafat.
Recent Events
The Iraq War and Palestinian Reform - On March 20, 2003, US, British and Australian forces invaded Iraq to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein. The Palestinians had supported Hussein and his regime had provided payments for families of suicide bombers, as well as sheltering Palestinian militants. US forces entered Baghdad on April 9, and President Bush declared the war over on May 1. The war produced an upheaval in the Middle East. Arabs were astounded by the swiftness of Iraq's collapse. Arab governments including the Palestinians hurried to make conciliatory gestures and talk of democracy, at the same time criticizing the US occupation of Iraq, which generated a great deal of resentment. Mahmud Abbas was elected Palestinian PM on April 29, however the violence did not abate. Israelis made bloody raids in Gaza and elsewhere on the day of his election. A few hours later, Fateh and Hamas perpetrated a suicide attack at a Tel Aviv night club, and the next day Israel began extensive raids in the territories. In violation of the roadmap, Yasser Arafat put himself in charge of organizing a new unified security force. As it had promised the Palestinians, the US released an updated road map on April 30 immediately after the election of Abu Mazen. (Click here for commentary on the roadmap).
At a festive summit held on June 4 in Aqaba, Israeli PM Sharon and Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas ( Abu Mazen) pledged to fulfill the conditions of the road map and shook hands in the presence of US President George Bush. Abu Mazen called for an end to violence. Click here for more commentary on the roadmap.
Islamist extremist Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders vowed to continue violence. Soon after the summit, four Israeli soldiers in Gaza were killed in a joint operation that included not only the Islamist extremists but also the Fatah movement of Abu Mazen. Israel began dismantling about ten of the 100 illegal outposts, but dismantled only uninhabited ones. On June 10, Israel tried to assassinate Hamas leader Ahmed Rantissi, kindling fury in Palestine and eliciting criticism from the US. On June 11, a Hamas suicide bombing killed 16 Israelis in a bus on the main street of Jerusalem. On August 20, a suicide bombing killed 21 people on a bus in Jerusalem. The following day, Israel assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab, possibly in retaliation. Israel also announced that the lives of all Hamas leaders were forfeit, and made several assassination attempts, some unsuccessful against Hamas leaders, including the aged and crippled "spiritual leader" of the Hamas. As the Hudna (truce) unraveled, there were threats and rumors of attempts on the life of PNA PM Mahmud Abbas by Palestinian extremists. In the following days, Israel moved into the West bank for a security clean up intended to last several days. Abbas and his Gaza Security Chief Mohamed Dahlan began to move against Palestinian terrorists as required by the roadmap, whereupon Yasser Arafat moved to replace Dahlan with Gibril Rajoub and to put security and the interior ministry in the hands of his supporters. Abbas announced that he would not act against terrorists on September 4, but this did not save his political career. Abbas resigned on September 6, and Ahmed Qureia ("Abu Ala"), an Arafat supporter, was appointed PM in his stead. Qureia vowed a tough line against Israel. On September 8, EU leaders moved to ban the political wing of the Hamas and prevent monetary contributions to it.
On the evening of September 10, 2003, twin suicide bombings in Jerusalem and outside the Tzrifin Army base near Rishon Le Zion claimed a total of 15 lives. A period of quiet was broken by a suicide bombing in a Haifa restaurant on October 4, attributed to Islamic Jihad. Palestinian PM designate Ahmed Qurei and the PA condemned the bombing, but refused to commit to taking action against terror groups. In retaliation, Israel invaded Gaza as well as Jenin, and on October 5 they struck at a base in Syria that Israel claimed was training Palestinian terror groups. This was the first Israeli attack on Syrian territory since the Yom Kippur (Ramadan) war in 1973. A long period of relative abatement in Palestinian attacks ensued, but Israel continued attacks on Palestinian targets with considerable loss of civilian life. Suicide attacks continued from time to time, done by either the Hamas and Islamic Jihad Islamist factions or by the Fatah Al Aqsa brigades, a faction of Yasser Arafat's Fatah group over which the PNA has apparently lost control. Suicide bombings were carried out December 25 2003, January 14, 2004, January 29, 2004, and February 22, by the "moderate" Fatah Al Aqsa brigades as well as by the Hamas and by the Popular Front for the liberation of Palestine.
Geneva Accord - Israeli opposition political leaders and Palestinian leaders announced an agreement in principle on conditions for a final settlement. The agreement, which has come to be known as the Geneva Accord, proposed historic concessions by both sides. Israel would give up sovereignty in Arab portions of Jerusalem, while the Palestinians would explicitly renounce the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel. Though it has no formal standing at present, the agreement has gotten widespread publicity, including support from US Secretary of State Colin Powell, and warm words from PNA Chairman Yasser Arafat. The Israeli government has denounced the agreement and the people involved in it, and tried to block advertisements for the agreement in the public media. Likewise, Palestinian extremists and their allies have denounced the agreement.
On November 12, 2003, after a long period of negotiations, Palestinian PM Ahmed Qurei formed a permanent government and moves began to institute a cease fire and renew negotiations with the Israelis. However, very little came of these moves. On November 19, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1515, endorsing the quartet road map for peace and calling upon the sides to fulfill their obligations to the road map plan. However, the Israeli incursions continued, and for their part, the Palestinians seemed unwilling or unable to control terrorist groups. Prospective meetings between Ahmed Qurei and Israeli PM Ariel Sharon were announced, rumored, vaunted and then evaporated. For a time, Qurei announced that he would not meet with Sharon until Israel stopped building its security barrier (see below). However, when Sharon announced his unilateral disengagement plan and it appeared to be in earnest, Qurei became concerned that the withdrawal without any negotiations would be a victory for the Hamas and Islamic Jihad, political rivals of the PLO who run the PNA, and who are grooming themselves to inherit leadership of the Palestinians. Qurei then announced that he would be ready to meet with Sharon, and that a meeting would definitely take place by the end of February. However, negotiations to set the agenda of this meeting were postponed for various reasons, including suicide bombings and Israeli assassinations.
Meanwhile, it became evident that Qurei was not really able to govern, despite some successes in improving financial transparency as demanded by the EU and USA. By the beginning of 2004 there were several reports of chaos, disunity and lawlessness in the Palestinian territories. At the end of February, ex-security-chief Mohamed Dahlan indicated that the Palestinian Authority could not reign-in the dissident Fatah Al-Aqsa brigades that had been responsible for several suicide bombings. Attempts to unify the security forces, blocked by Arafat, ended in dissension and bitter recriminations. On February 26, Chairman Arafat promised to hold long-postponed elections, but many Palestinians did not believe he would keep his promise. In Nablus, lawlessness reigned and the Mayor resigned.
Peace feelers from Syria - Following the passage of the Syria Accountability Act in the United States, Syria announced that it was ready to renew negotiations with Israel over a peace treaty, without preconditions, but stated that the negotiations should continue where they had been interrupted. Negotiations under PM Ehud Barak had been interrupted after Israel had ceded most of the Golan Heights captured in the 1967 6-day war, but did not want to cede areas that had been conquered by Syria in 1948. The Israeli response to the renewed Syrian overtures was cool, since no pressure emanated from the US regarding renewal of negotiations, and President Assad's government continued to shelter the Hizbullah and Palestinian "resistance" groups. (See commentary Here and Here).
The Security Barrier (aka "Security Fence" "Apartheid Wall") - A major issue of the 2003 Israel election campaign had been the erection of a security barrier (fence, wall) advocated by dovish Israel Labor party. The barrier was to be erected along the Green line and would help to prevent suicide attacks in Israel. A similar barrier in Gaza had reduced infiltration to zero. The right, including Ariel Sharon's Likud party, opposed the barrier, because it would create a de-facto border as they thought, dividing Jerusalem, and putting most of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank outside the protection of the security arrangements. Sharon and the Likud won the election by a landslide majority, sending the Labor party and the leftist Meretz party into total disarray.
During 2003, PM Ariel Sharon adopted and adapted the barrier concept, changing the route to include major Israeli settlements and including a projected eastern portion that would envelope the Palestinians in two enclaves. As the barrier went up, it became evident that it would trap many Palestinians who would be cut off from their fields and places of work, some on the Israeli side of the 1948 armistice Green Line, and some on the Palestinian side. In populated areas where it is most visible, the barrier is in fact a forbidding cement wall, though it is a fence over most of its extent. Palestinian groups and Israeli peace groups began an intense protest campaign. On December 8, 2003, the UN General Assembly met in Emergency session and adopted resolution ES-10/14, which asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague for an advisory opinion on the legality of the barrier. The ICJ began its hearings on February 24. Israel boycotted the hearings, but submitted a brief saying that the court should not rule on the matter. About 30 other countries including the United States and several EU countries, submitted briefs saying that the court should not rule on the matter because it was a political question rather than a legal one, and likewise did not attend the hearings. Most of these countries also criticized the barrier as illegal or a hindrance to peace negotiations. Zionist and Israeli groups organized demonstrations at the Hague, and Palestinians organized counter demonstrations. The Israelis brought a bombed out bus and stressed that the wall prevents suicide attacks. The Palestinians used the hearings as a platform for delegitimizing the occupation. ( Click here for maps and details about the security barrier/fence/wall)
Unilateral Withdrawal - A second proposal of the Israel Labor Party, led by Amram Mitzna, during the 2003 election campaign, was that if negotiations with the Palestinians fail, Israel should withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza strip and perhaps from parts of the West Bank, and try to live its life behind the security barrier. Ariel Sharon and the Likud damned this proposal as defeatism, but toward the end of 2003, Sharon himself announced that he was drawing up a unilateral withdrawal plan, to be carried out "in 6 months" (a date later postponed). The plan for withdrawing from all of Gaza met with intense opposition from fellow Likud party members and from settlers. Reports in late February indicated that Israel was still confiscating land to build security barriers for Gaza settlements, even though Sharon had supposedly earmarked the settlements for evacuation.
Israeli Corruption Scandal - Ever since Ariel Sharon's election in 2003, a pall of suspicion had fallen over him and other Likud party members owing to allegations of bribery and underworld influence. In January 2003, David Appel, a close associate of Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, was indicted for bribery charges. The charge sheet alleged that he had bribed Sharon, Sharon's son and Deputy PM Ehud Ohlmert. The obvious question was whether or not Sharon would be indicted (see commentary for details).
Dubious Prisoner Exchange - After many months of negotiations through a German intermediary, Israel and the Lebanese Hizbollah movement agreed to an exchange of prisoners on very one-sided terms on January 29, 2004. Israel freed over 400 hundred live Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners and returned a large number of bodies in return for the bodies of three Israeli soldiers kidnapped by the Hizbullah and killed, and one civilian, reserve army officer Elhanan Tannenbaum, a shady "businessman" who lied about the way in which he was kidnapped, and gave the Hizbullah a free commercial on El-Manara Television. (see commentary for details).
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin - Israel had been targeting Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin for assassination for many months. Following a suicide attack in the port of Ashdod, the IDF stepped up operations against Islamists in Gaza, and announced again that all Hamas leaders were targets for assassination. On March 22, Israeli intelligence ascertained that Ahmed Yassin, founder and leader of the Hamas Islamist movement, had gone to prayers without his wife and children, and the green light was given to assassinate him. The assassination of the crippled old man, who was nonetheless responsible for instigating the deaths of hundreds of people, and for sabotaging the peace process, drew protests from most of the world, and vows of revenge from Hamas. The assassination probably had little strategic value, and was carried out to bolster the failing popularity of Israeli PM Ariel Sharon. (see commentary and sources for details).
Letter of Assurance from George Bush - In April, 2004, Israeli PM Ariel Sharon traveled to the US and on April 14 he met with US President George Bush, to get American backing and assurances for Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan. Bush provided a letter stating that the the US accepts the disengagement plan and that the roadmap remains the only peace plan backed by the United States. In addition, to help Sharon gain popularity for the plan in Israel, Bush stated that the US believes Palestinian refugees should be settled in the new Palestinian state, rather than Israel, that in his view, Israel should not have to withdraw to the borders of the 1949 armistice, and that the US acquiesces in the Israeli security fence. Sharon reiterated Israeli commitment to the roadmap and pledged that the security barrier was a temporary expedient and not a final border. Bush's letter carries little weight in future negotiations, and reiterated stands taken by former President Clinton on refugees and borders. Nonetheless, it created an uproar throughout the Muslim world.
Assassination of Abdel Azis Rantisi - On April 17, 2004, the IAF killed newly elected Hamas leader Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantissi. Dr. Mahmoud Zahar was apparently elected in his place, but no official announcement was made for fear of Israeli retaliation. Zahar is reportedly the last of the seven founders of the Hamas still alive. The others were all assassinated by Israel.
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Understanding the Middle East I - Talking Points Versus Understanding
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Source Documents- Arab-Israel Conflict
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Bibliography
Water Issues
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A Brief History of Egypt - A capsule history of Egypt since earliest times.
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A concise history of Islam and the Arabs
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