Thursday, July 30, 2015

JEWS DISPLACED FROM ARAB COUNTRIES: A STORY OF COLLUSION



JEWS DISPLACED FROM ARAB COUNTRIES: A STORY OF COLLUSION

(League of Arab States)


JEWS DISPLACED FROM ARAB COUNTRIES: A STORY OF COLLUSION (League of Arab States)
Note: All documents are referenced and all source material is readily available in the United Nations Archives
Chronology of Events and Evidence
For over 2,500 years, Jews resided in North Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf region in substantial numbers – fully 1,000 years before the advent of Islam. During the twentieth century, the uprooting of up to one million Jews from their ancient Jewish communities in ten Arab countries did not occur by happenstance.
State-sanctioned repressive measures, coupled often with violence and repression, precipitated the Jewish refugee problem in the Middle East.
There is ample evidence that points to collusion, a shared pattern of conduct amongst a number of Arab regimes that appeared intended to coerce Jews to leave, or to use them as weapons in the Arab world’s struggle against the State of Israel. This is evidenced from:
(a) The drafting of a Law by the Political
Committee of the Arab League that recommended a coordinated strategy of repressive measures against Jews;
(b) strikingly similar legislation and discriminatory decrees, enacted by numerous Arab governments, that violated the fundamental rights and freedoms of Jews resident in Arab countries;
(c) statements made by delegates of Arab countries at the U.N. during the debate on the ‘Partition Resolution’, representing a pattern of ominous threats made against Jews in Arab countries; and (d) newspaper reports from that period.
This Chronology provides a small sample, and not an exhaustive survey, of such of events and evidence.
* * * * *
In 1947, the Political Committee of the Arab League (League of Arab States) drafted a law that was to govern the legal status of Jewish residents in all Arab League countries (See attached Exhibit E). Arab diplomats at the UN sought to attribute blame for any danger to Jews on the Arab “masses” – indeed, even
to the UN itself – while, in fact, the Arab League was colluding to encourage state sanctioned discrimination against Jews in all of its member states – at the time, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, and Yemen.
This Draft Law of the Arab League provided that “…all Jews – with the exception of citizens of non-Arab countries – were to be considered members of the Jewish ‘minority state of Palestine,'; that their bank accounts would be frozen and used to finance resistance to ‘Zionist ambitions in Palestine; Jews believed to
be active Zionists would be interned as political prisoners and their assets confiscated; only Jews who accept active service in Arab armies or place themselves at the disposal of these armies would be considered ‘Arabs.'” 1
From the sheer volume of subsequent state-sanctioned discriminatory measures, replicated in so many Arab countries and instituted in such a parallel fashion, one is drawn to the conclusion that such evidence suggests a common pattern of repressive measures, – indeed collusion – against Jews by Arab governments
(See attached “State Sanctioned Persecution of Jews in Egypt {Exhibit K} and Iraq {Exhibit L}).
1 Text of Law Drafted by Political Committee of Arab League (See attached Exhibit E)
The following official statements demonstrate a pattern of ominously similar threats made against Jews in Arab countries:
November 24, 1947
In a key address to the Political Committee of the U.N. General Assembly on the morning of November 24, 1947, just five days before that body voted on the Partition plan for Palestine, Heykal Pasha, an Egyptian delegate, made the following statement:
“The United Nations … should not lose sight of the fact that the proposed solution might endanger a million Jews living in the Muslim countries. … If the United Nations decided to partition Palestine they might be responsible for very grave disorders and for the massacre of a large number of Jews.” 2
November 24, 1947
In an afternoon session of the Political Committee of the U.N. General Assembly on November 24, 1947, the Palestinian delegate to the UN, Jamal Husseini, representing the Arab Higher Committee of Palestine to the UN General Assembly, made the following threat:
“It should be remembered that there were as many Jews in the Arab world as there are in Palestine whose positions might become very precarious.” 3
November 28, 1947
Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fadil Jamali, at the 126th Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly stated:
“Not only the uprising of the Arabs in Palestine is to be expected but the masses in the Arab world cannot be restrained. The Arab-Jewish relationship in the Arab world will greatly deteriorate.” 4
January 19, 1948
A memorandum was submitted to the U.N. Economic and Social Council by the World Jewish Congress, warning ECOSOC that “all Jews residing in the Near and Middle East face extreme and imminent danger.” The memorandum referred to the Text of Law Drafted by Political Committee of [the] Arab League (See attached Exhibit E) which was already adopted by Egypt, Saudi Arabia
and Iraq. This law recommended discriminatory treatment against Jewish residents in all Arab League countries. The Memorandum went on to report on recent incidents of violence and other anti-Jewish measures in a variety of Arab countries. Due to the “extreme urgency” of this matter, the WJC requested that this matter be placed on “the agenda of the forthcoming” meeting of the
U.N. Economic and Social Council.
2 U.N. General Assembly, Second Session, Official Records, Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question, Summary Record of the Thirteenth Meeting, Lake Success, N.Y., November 24, 1947 (A/AC.14/SR.30). This comment was made at 10:30 am.
3 U.N. General Assembly, Second Session, Official Records, Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question, Summary Record of the Thirty-First Meeting, Lake Success, N.Y., November 24, 2947 (A/AC.14/SR.31) This
comment was made at 2:30 pm.
4 U.N. General Assembly, Second Session, Official Records, Verbatim Record of the 126th Plenary Meeting, November 28, 1947, p. 1391.
February 16, 1948
A second Memorandum was submitted by the World Jewish Congress to the ECOSOC President, citing cases of serious violence, economic discrimination and “anti-Jewish excesses” that had occurred in Syria. Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Bahrain, urging the Council “to take up the situation of these Jewish populations as a matter of immediate international concern.” 5
March 5, 1948
Item 37 on the agenda of the UN Economic and Social Council, supported by Document E/710
(See attached Exhibit J) was to deal with the “extreme and imminent danger” to Jews in Arab countries. The Council’s President, Dr. Charles H. Malik (Lebanon), utilized a procedural maneuver that resulted in the matter never being addressed.
March 11, 1948
When the Council was ready to resume its deliberations, Mr. Katz-Suchy (Poland) requested that the matter of Document E/710 (See attached Exhibit J: The World Jewish Congress Memorandum that alluded to “The extreme and imminent danger to Jews residing in the near and Middle East) be
reconsidered. He charged that “agreement had been reached among the five major Powers not to discuss document E/710″ and argued that “usual” Council procedure was not followed. Mr. Kaminsky (Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic) declared that “he could not condone a practice whereby items on the agenda were allowed to disappear from the agenda.” A resolution
recommending that this matter be discussed in full at the next Council meeting (July 1948) was adopted by a vote of 15 – 1. The lone dissenting vote was cast by the representative of Lebanon who stated that the resolution “was tantamount to prejudging the issue.”
May 16, 1948
A New York Times article reported on Law drafted by the Political Committee of the Arab League and revealed some of its provisions:
“It [the law] provides that beginning on an unspecified date all Jews except citizens of non-Arab states, would be considered “members of the Jewish minority state of Palestine.”
Their bank accounts would be frozen and used to finance resistance to “Zionist ambitions in Palestine.” Jews believed to be active Zionists would be interned and their assets confiscated.” 6
June 21, 1948
The Council referred this matter back to the NGO Committee of ECOSOC which met and reviewed document E/710 (i.e. The World Jewish Congress Memorandum that alluded to “The extreme and imminent danger to Jews residing in the near and Middle East). A resolution “concluded that it should not make specific recommendations regarding the substance of the consultation (WJC Memorandum) unless specifically requested by Council” 7. This circuitous
‘buck passing’ ensured that the matter was never addressed.
5 Report on the Activities of the Political Department (November 15, 1947 – May 15, 1948)
6 New York Times May 16, 1948 “Jews in Grave Danger in All Muslim Lands, Nine hundred thousand in Africa and Asia face wrath of their foes.” by Mallory Browne.
7 Report on the Council NGO Committee (Item 31) (E/940) August 9, 1948
Exhibit E
Text of Law drafted by Political Committee of Arab League
1. Beginning with November 28, 1947, all Jewish citizens of (Name of Arab Country) will be considered as members of the Jewish minority State of Palestine and will have to register with the authorities of the region wherein they reside, giving their names, the exact number of members in their families, their addresses, the names of their banks and the amounts of their deposits in these banks. This formality is to be accomplished within seven days.
2. Beginning with (November 28, 1947), bank accounts of Jews will be frozen. These funds will be utilized in part or in full to finance the movement of resistance to Zionist ambitions in Palestine.
3. Beginning with (November 28, 1947), only Jews who are subjects of foreign countries will be considered as “neutrals”. These will be compelled either to return to their countries, with a minimum of delay, or be considered as Arabs and obliged to accept active service with the Arab army.
4. Jews who accept active service in Arab armies or place themselves at the disposal of those armies, will be considered as “Arabs”.
5. Every Jew whose activities reveal that he is an active Zionist will be considered as a political prisoner and will be interned in places specifically designated for that purpose by police authorities or by the Government. His financial resources, instead of being frozen, will be confiscated.
6. Any Jew who will be able to prove that his activities are anti-Zionist will be free to act as he likes, provided that he declares his readiness to join the Arab armies.
7. The foregoing (para.6) does not mean that those Jews will not be submitted to paragraphs 1 and 2 of this law.



  • Greater Israel belongs to the Jewish people under International Law!
    • The Jewish People’s historical right to the land of Greater Israel had been recognized by the international community and upheld by the rule of public international law.
    Any view that contradicts this statement is pure distortion of the facts and history.
    Israel is not obliged to support the creation of an Arab state west of the Jordan river alongside Israel and it must not concede to any such arrangement or the security and survival of Israel will be compromised.
    The Oslo Agreements were made with a view to enhance “a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.” Yet, since their coming into effect the Middle East has witnessed not peace but violence of the worst kind in recent history. As of today the Oslo agreement is null and void. The Arab Palestinians have not lived up to any of the agreement. The Arab Palestinians promote, preach and teach their children and the masses to create terror, violence and suicide bombing. Their only goal is the destruction of the Jewish State, read the Palestinian and Hamas Charter.
    The establishment of the Palestinian Authority should serve as a “guide to the bewildered” of the grave risks posed by such an Arab State, which may eventually lead to the destruction of the Jewish State. Any land for peace compromise by Israel has made the situation worse. Sadly, appeasement and concessions by Israel only aggravated the situation and increased violence. Israel must stand its ground, resist unjust world pressure and protect its citizens at all costs. Any concessions by Israel will only make the situation worse and bring about more violence and death, as the past experience has proven.
    Under public international law, Israel is entitled to diligently encourage and promote close Jewish settlement of the land of Israel, thereby realizing the principles set out by the San Remo Treaty of 1920 and the League of Nations in the original Mandate document. In 1922 in violation of the treaty, the British gave away 80% of the land allocated to the Jewish people and gave it to the Arabs to set-up a state that never existed in history. (The British wanted to protect their oil interests).
    In addition at that time, the Allied powers also set up 21 Arab States and one Jewish State. If you questions Israel’s borders, you must question the 21 Arab States borders and Jordan.
    It is also important to address the expulsion of over a million Jewish people from the Arab countries and the confiscation of land owned by Jewish people in the Arab countries, totaling 120,000 sq. km. (4 times the size of Israel) valued at over 15 trillion dollars and other personal assets confiscated by the Arabs totaling over 990 billion dollars.
    The Jewish people resettled the million Jewish refugees from the Arab countries. It is about time the Arab countries who expelled the million Jewish people, must settle the Arab-Palestinian refugees once and for all without compromising Israel and bring about peace and tranquility to the region.
    Neither the U.N. nor any Country in the world has the authority to create a state or dissolve a state, (check the U.N. charter and international law.)
    A true peace will bring about an economic boom to the region of which the world has never seen before. It will raise the standard of living for all the people in the Middle East and accelerate peace and harmony.
    It will also divert the billions of dollars invested in war materials to be used to advance the economy, medical and social services and more.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Pierre Loti on Hebron circa 1895



Pierre Loti on Hebron circa 1895


Pierre Loti, the famous French writer, came to Israel near the end of the 19th century. We have already quoted and translated part of his description of Jerusalem here and here. He also visited Hebron, one of the four holy cities of the Jews according to Jewish tradition. A sizable Jewish population lived there [sizable in proportion to the town's total population] until 1929, when Arabs made a pogrom and massacre against the Jews there. This pogrom was conducted with British acquiescence, if not British approval and encouragement, even instigation.

Here we quote from a published translation into English of Loti's book:

. . . Hebron is still without hotels; it remains indeed one of the most fanatical Mussulman towns of Palestine and will scarcely consent to lodge a Christian under its roofs [Pierre Loti, Jerusalem (trans. W P Baines; London: T. Werner Laurie, n.d.), p10]
Arabs and Jews move in a crowd about the streets . . . Hebron is one of those towns that are not marred by a building of modern or foreign appearance.[p 12]
In regard to the Cave of Machpelah [Makhpelah] or Tomb of the Patriarchs, he writes:
. . . To Christians and Jews the mosque itself[Muslims call the tomb Masjid Ibrahimi = Mosque of Abraham] is proscribed [= forbidden]; influence, stratagem, gold, are powerless to gain them admittance to it -- and when, some twenty years ago, it was opened for the Prince of Wales on a formal order from the Sultan, the population of Hebron was on the point of armed revolt [p 14]
Almost on a level with the ground, there is a fissure through which Christians and Jews are allowed to pass their heads so that, crawling, they may kiss the holy stones. And this evening some poor Israelite pilgrims are there, prostrate, stretching out their necks like foxes running to earth, in an effort to touch with their lips the tomb of their ancestor; while Arab children, charming and mocking, who are allowed within the enclosure, watch them with a smile of high disdain.
This place is one of the most ancient venerated by mankind and there has never been a time when men have ceased to come and pray here. [p15]
And this surely is a thing unique in the annals of the dead: the sepulchre, originally so single, which reunited them all [= the Patriarchs and Matriarchs], has never ceased to be venerated -- while the most sumptuous tombs of Egypt and Greece have long since been profaned and empty. [p16]
Loti recognizes that the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron is a Jewish tomb taken over by Muslims, by Arabs. The tomb in its present form was built by King Herod in the late Second Temple period, although there are some Crusader and Muslim additions that mar the structure's simple beauty. The attribution to Herod is because he was a great builder of monumental buildings, including the Temple destroyed by the Romans and their auxiliary troops, including Arabs [see here]. Certain similarities of construction with the remnants of Herod's Second Temple are also evident. Jews were allowed by Muslim rulers to enter the Tomb and pray inside until Baybars the Mamluk forbid Jewish entry --as Loti describes-- in the year 1263, approx. After the Six Day War, Jews were again allowed to enter and pray in the Tomb, after the passage of slightly more than 700 years!!
The pogrom/massacre of 1929 has been described in many publications in Hebrew and other languages. Those who want a non-Jewish perspective could consult the reports of the famous journalists [at that time], Pierre van Paassen and Albert Londres. For Van Paassen, seeForgotten AllyDays of Our Years, and other works. For Londres, see --in French-- Le Juif errant est arrive'. Note that the Arab-Muslim children show disdain towards the humiliated Jews, no doubt this is what they were taught. Jews and other non-Muslims in Muslim states [Dar al-Islam] were kept in a state of humiliation according to Islamic law [for instance, see Qur'an 9:29 (verse numbers vary in some editions)] and called dhimmis[See previous posts on this blog on dhimmis].

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Coming: more on peace and its follies, carter/baker and their follies, Jews in Jerusalem, etc.


2 Comments:

  • Eliyahu shalom,
    Thank you for this post. Where is there a translated version of Loti's book? Would be very interested to be in contact with you.
    B'vracha from Hebron,
    David Wilder
    hebron@hebron.org.il
    dwilder@gmail.com
  • David, Shalom,
    I found this book some years ago in the open stacks in the Judaica section of the National Library on Giv`at Ram in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, forgot to copy down the year of publication. I believe that the French original came out in 1896, so the English version probably came out later. Look under Pierre Loti. You could also check the online catalogue of the HU university library.
    Best Wishes, Shabbat Shalom

Pierre Loti's Observations of Jerusalem & the Jews There, 1894 -- Part One

Forty-four years after Flaubert visited Jerusalem [1850], another French writer, Pierre Loti, visited the holy city.


Tuesday 3 April 1894
. . . tunnels seem to lead to the Haram esh-Sherif, to the Temple enclosure. . .
It is at sunrise of one of the cloudy spring days in Judea. . . [Aziza, pp 1296-1297]
Note that Loti calls the country Judea and that the Muslim sanctuary built on the Temple Mount is identified with the place of the ancient Jewish Temple and is important precisely for that reason.
Friday 6 April 1894
. . . Turning the southern corner of the walls [the southeastern corner facing the Mount of Olives], we come back into Jerusalem through the ancient Mughrabi Gate [also called Dung Gate, on the south of the Old City]. No one any longer within the ramparts; one might think one had entered a dead city. In front of us, gullies of cactus and stones that separate Mount Moriah from the inhabited quarters [neighborhoods]on Mount Zion -- waste land where we walk alongside the the enclosure of that other desert, the Haram esh-Sherif, which formerly was the Temple.

It is Friday evening, the traditional moment when --every week-- the Jews come to weep in a special place granted by the Turks, on the ruins of the Temple of Solomon, which "will never be rebuilt." And we want to pass, before nightfall, through this place of Lamentations. After the empty ground, we now reach narrow alleys, strewn with rubbish, and finally, a sort of enclosure, full of the stirrings of a strange crowd which moans together in a low, cadenced voice. The dim twilight is already beginning. The background of this place, surrounded by somber walls, is closed, crushed by a formidable Solomonic construction [actually Herodian], a fragment of the Temple enclosure, all in huge, identical blocks [actually the stones are massive and similar but of various sizes]. And men in long velvet robes, agitated by a kind of general rocking back and forth, like caged bears, appear to us seen from their backs, facing this immense ruin, tapping their foreheads on these stones and murmuring a kind of slightly quavering chant.
. . .

The robes are magnificent, black velvets, blue velvets, violet or crimson velvets, lined with precious furs. The skullcaps are all in black velvet, edged with long-haired furs, which put in the shade the sharp nose and the hostile glance. The faces, which make a half-turn to examine us, are almost all of a special ugliness, of an ugliness to make one shiver: so thin, so slender, so sly, with such small eyes, sly and tearful, under the fall of dead eyelids! White and pink hues of unwholesome wax and, on all ears, corkscrews of hair which hang in the "English" fashion of 1830, completing disturbing resemblances to bearded old ladies. . .
[quoted in Claude Aziza, Jerusalem: le reve a` l'ombre du Temple("Collection Omnibus"; Paris: Presses de la Cite, 1994), pp 1298-1299]
Notes
--The Mughrabi Gate is so named after Arabs from North Africa settled nearby since the Middle Ages. In fact, the Jewish prayer place at the Western Wall was enclosed on the western side, facing the Temple Mount, by houses of the Mughrabi Quarter.
--Mount Moriah is a late name for the Temple Mount, originally called Mount Zion.
--The Mount Zion of today is roughly speaking, the areas of the Jewish and Armenian Quarters, incorrectly named Mount Zion on account of the Byzantine Nea Sion church once there, now a ruin.
--The New Testament claims --perhaps in words written after the fact-- that the Temple will be destroyed [Matt 24:2; Mk 13:2; Lk 21:6]. The claim that the Temple "will never be rebuilt" seems part of a later Christian tradition building on these NT verses.

Pierre Loti [1850-1923] was a French naval officer and widely traveled on that account. Less famous than Flaubert, he was elected to the Académie Française. His novels emphasized the exotic, the sensual, and love [real name: Louis-Marie Julien Viaud]. He disparages the Jews he sees in Jerusalem, but recognizes the ancient, vanished Jewish Temple as giving importance to the present Muslim sanctuary built in its place.
[Photos from Focus East, Early Photography in the Near East 1839-1885 (Jerusalem: Israel Museum 1988)]
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Coming: more from Pierre Loti on Jerusalem and Hebron, Jews in Muslim lands, etc.


Pierre Loti's Observations of Jerusalem and the Jews There [1894] -- Part Two



Continuing Pierre Loti's description of Jerusalem, particularly of proceedings at the Western Wall Jewish prayer place --often offensively called the "Wailing Wall." This is just a section of the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount built by the Jewish priestly caste, the Kohanim, during the reign of King Herod of Judea, although not finished in his time. On the lower levels, the original Herodian stone wall is still in place to this day. It could not have been removed, of course, without destroying the Temple Mount itself, which subsequent conquerors [Arab-Muslims and Crusaders] wanted for their own use.

Loti continues his description of Jewish prayer at the Western Wall prayer place:
Against the wall of the Temple, against the last wreckage of their past splendor, it is the Lamentations of Jeremiah that they all recite over and over, with voices that chant quaveringly in cadence, with the quick rocking of the body:
-- Because of the Temple which is destroyed, the rabbi cries out.
-- We are seated solitary and we weep! the crowd answers.
-- Because of our walls that have been brought down.
-- We are seated solitary and we weep!
-- Because of our majesty which has past, because of our great men who have perished.
-- We are seated solitary and we weep!
And there are two or three of them, of these old men, who shed real tears, who have placed their Bibles in the holes of the stones, in order to have their hands free and shake them above their heads in a cursing gesture.
If the shaking skulls and their white beards are in the majority at the foot of the Wall of Tears, it is that --from all corners of the world where Israel is dispersed-- his sons come back here when they feel their end approaching, in order to be buried in the holy valley of Jehoshaphat. And Jerusalem is more and more congested with old men who have come there in order to die.

In itself, it is unique, touching and sublime: after so many unparalleled misfortunes, after so many centuries of exile and dispersion, the unshakable attachment of this people to a lost homeland! For a little one might weep with them -- if they were not Jews, and if one did not feel one's heart strangely icy on account of all their abject forms.
But, before this wall of Tears, the mystery of the prophecies appears more unexplained and more striking. The mind meditates, confused over these destinies of Israel, without precedent, without parallel in the history of mankind, impossible to foresee, and yet, foretold, at the very time of the splendor of Zion, with disquieting accuracy of details. [quoted in Claude Aziza, Jerusalem. . . p 1299]
[Photos from Focus East, Early Photography in the Near East 1839-1885 (Jerusalem: Israel Museum 1988)]
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Coming: more on Jews in Jerusalem, Gerry Adams--liar and hypocrite, more follies of peace in the Middle East, etc.

Professor Biger's Turkophilic Fantasies -- More Distortion of History



Professor Biger's Turkophilic Fantasies -- More Distortion of History


UPDATING 7-22-2008, see bottom

Gid`on Biger is indeed an expert on the internal administrative boundaries in the Land of Israel during the Ottoman period [see previous post]. However, he has an unfortunate proclivity to apologize for Muslim misdeeds. Hence, he has been taken to the bosom of a Turkish apologist website, "Tall Armenian Tale." Remarks that he made several years ago at an Israeli-Turkish conference of historians at Tel Aviv University were recorded and summarized by Abraham Rabinovich, for many years a correspondent of the Jerusalem Post.

Prof. Gideon Biger of Tel Aviv University said that Israeli and other Jewish historians have been distinctly ungenerous to the Turks in making them out to be "the big bad wolf."

Acts of villainy attributed to the Turks during the World War I in fact constituted moderate, even civilized, behavior in the context of war, he said.

WHEN fighting broke out in 1914, there were 95,000 Jews in Palestine, most of whom had arrived in the decades after 1882. Most did not adopt Ottoman citizenship, preferring to retain citizenship of their home country, with the protection that offered.

With the outbreak of war, some of these home countries — like Britain, France and Russia — became enemies of Turkey. Their nationals were given a choice of becoming Ottoman subjects or leaving the Ottoman Empire. If they became subjects, they would be liable to draft but, as a gesture, the Turks said they would defer draft for a year.

About 15,000 foreign Jews who refused to take Ottoman citizenship were forced to leave the country. Noting that Israeli history books refer to this as "the cruel deportation," Biger said that no country behaved more gently to citizens of enemy states during a war. [report of lecture by Abraham Rabinovich]
What Biger doesn't ask is why Jewish immigrants into the Land of Israel --which did not exist as a political or administrative-territorial entity under any name under the Mamluk and Ottoman empires-- preferred "to retain citizenship of their home country, with the protection that offered," rather than take on Ottoman subjecthood. We say subjecthood, since the Ottoman Empire had subjects not citizens. Actually, Biger errs. The bulk of the immigrants were Russian Jews. The Russian Empire provided minimal "protection" --if at all-- to their Jewish subjects in the Ottoman Empire. The Russian Empire hated Jews and the Russian Jews generally hated that empire. The tsar's empire did not "protect" or represent the Russian Jews in Jerusalem, for example, except minimally and sporadically perhaps. The Russian tsars wanted to renew Greek Orthodox domination of the Land, as embodied in the Byzantine Empire before the Arab conquest, and in the future to be embodied in Russian leadership or domination. For this purpose, Jews in the Holy Land were seen as a hindrance.

It is reasonable to conclude that most Russian Jews in the Land of Israel would have been happy to take on Ottoman subjecthood ["nationality"] if it had been better than, an improvement over, Russian subjecthood. The Russian Empire was notorious before WW1 for persecution and harassment of Jews, particularly in areas of thick Jewish settlement, Russian Poland, Belarus and the Ukraine [in outlying, non-Slavic, areas like Bukhara, Russian rule was an improvement for the Jews over previous Muslim oppression]. Actually, one of the ways in which the Russian Empire oppressed Jews early in the 19th century was to impose on them a practice copied from the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans for hundreds of years confiscated children from the Christian natives in the Balkans, Serbs, Greeks, Romanians [then called Vlakhs or Wallachs] in a system called devshirme and forced them to convert to Islam and serve in the army or other state agencies. The comparable Russian practice was called the Cantonist policy, which was in fact milder than devshirme, since it gave the Jewish child recruits a chance to return to their families if they had not converted after 25 years of service. The policy was discontinued in the mid-19th century. Given the loathing of most Jews in the Russian Empire for their oppressors, Jews from Russia in Israel would have gladly taken up Ottoman subjecthood, if it had been an improvement. Indeed, during the Crimean War against Russia, the local Ottoman officials in Jerusalem enlisted local rabbis of both the Sefardim and the Ashkenazim [many of them from the Russian Empire] to lead prayers for an Ottoman victory in the war [actually, French and British forces defended the Ottoman Empire against Russia]at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount.

The question that we would ask Biger is: Why did so many non-Muslim natives of the empire, Christians as well as Jews (especially Christians), take on the protection and citizenship [sometimes called then "nationality"] of Western powers? Their purpose was to avoid the disabilities, the social and juridical inferiority imposed on non-Muslims under Muslim dominion.
Moreover, the historian George Clark tells us of the Ottomans:

It has often been said that their empire was an army of occupation and not a political power.
[G Clark, The Seventeenth Century ( 1st ed. 1929; 5th printing: New York: Oxford Univ Press 1961), p 172].
For the same reasons, the same could be said about the early, pre-Crusades Arab empires. For related reasons, I would accept in some ways Biger's defense of the Ottoman state. The oppression of non-Muslims as dhimmis that so many wanted to escape was carried out not only by the Ottoman state but by local Muslims. Indeed, sometimes the Ottoman state protected dhimmis from oppression and persecution by local Muslims that went beyond the commands of Muslim law [shari`ah]. When the Ottoman state was strong it could supply such protection. But when it was weak local Muslim notables and strongmen felt that they could act without restraint. This was why many or most Jewish immigrants did not seek Ottoman subjecthood, Professor Biger, especially after it became possible to take on a Western citizenship or "nationality."

The Turkish apologist website then goes on to falsify Ottoman imperial history:

Here's the deal: after centuries of prosperity, practically all the minorities of the Ottoman Empire decided to take advantage of the weakened Ottoman Empire and stabbed their nation in the back. Years later, groups from Armenians to Greeks to Assyrians would dishonorably present the reaction to their treachery as "genocide."
It's too funny --"after centuries of prosperity." So the oppressed dhimmi subject peoples "stabbed their nation in the back." Their "nation" or their state? As if they owed something to the Ottoman Empire. It should be needless to say that the above is asinine but in the 21st century no knowledge or understanding --on the part of the uneducated or the university- educated alike-- can be taken for granted. That is, historical knowledge is so meager among ordinary people and "intellectuals" and academics, even regarding events within living memory, like the Holocaust, like Palestinian Arab collaboration in the Holocaust, that one cannot take it for granted that people know anything.

Be that as it may, after blaming Jews for not taking Ottoman subjecthood, Prof Biger gets to another related issue.

THE MOST emotion-laden grievance against the Turks [on the part of Jews in Israel] involved their crackdown on the Nili spy ring, founded by a group of young Jews in Zichron Ya'acov to help the Allied war effort [during World War 1]. The ringleader, Aaron Aaronson, managed to escape but the Turks hanged other members of the ring and tortured Aaronson's sister, Sara, who finally shot herself.

The known facts are correct, said Biger, but the prevailing Jewish attitude is too narrow.

The only people punished by the Turks, he noted, were those actually involved in the ring — and only after a military trial. There was no collective punishment against the Jews of Palestine or even of Zichron Ya'acov. "No house was burned and anyone can visit today the original house of the Aaronson family. The woman who committed suicide was actually a spy who received the 'usual treatment' of spies during war."
[Abraham Rabinovich, "The Secret Crescent Cause"]
Yes, many other countries have executed spies. The United States executed --during peacetime-- the Rosenbergs, husband and wife, who indeed spied for the Soviet Union (the wife's activity was marginal). The press of the time charged the Rosenbergs with giving the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Communist USSR during WW2, while the USA and USSR were allies. In fact, Harry Hopkins, a White House advisor of FDR, has been accused of seeing to the transport to the USSR of cartons of documents produced by the Manhattan Project to produce the atomic bomb, in addition to having heavy water shipped there. Furthermore, certain atomic scientists who actually worked on the bomb and knew much more about it than Rosenberg did, and gave information about it to the USSR, were sentenced to only light terms [i.e., Klaus Fuchs]. So even the USA executed spies. By executing members of the NILI, the Ottoman government was doing nothing exceptional, as Biger says. However, he does not ask WHY the NILI group spied for the British on the Ottoman Empire.

In fact, they were well aware of the Armenian genocide. Sarah Aaronsohn had seen how the Armenians were being herded toward their death, suffering abuse, as she watched from her train window on a trip from Kusta [the Hebrew name; it was then called Constantinople in the West, now Istanbul] in 1915. Jews in the NILI group spied for Britain out of fear that the Armenian massacre might be applied to Jews in Israel. The Jews had no special loyalty to Russia, the UK's ally in the war. The NILI group were well aware of the Armenian genocide. Zionists and other Jews outside of Israel were well aware of the Armenian genocide and worried that it might be extended to the Jews. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Max Nordau and Prof. A.S. Yehuda wrote during WW I about the concern for the survival of the Jews in Israel during the war. The Turkish/Ottoman apologist quoted above supplies the name of another Zionist writer on this matter, Alfred Boehm, through a quote from an Ottoman Jewish subject of that time. I am not familiar with Boehm's writings.

As Mustafa Kemal Ataturk pointed out, however, there was one exception among the different millets [subject ethno-religious groups with autonomy as dhimmi peoples]: Ottoman Jews remained loyal. In an emotional encounter, one summed it up:
"So now the unethical genocide industry has gotten wind of this episode. Creepy Zionists like Alfred Boehm have written books making ugly statements such as, If Palestine had not been freed by the English at the end of 1917, the Jewish Yishuv (settlement) [Yishuv= the Jewish population in Israel]would have been exterminated by Djemal."
Jamal Pasha was part of the triumvirate ruling the Ottoman Empire during WW I. He and his friends took power in 1908 through the Young Turk movement, formally known as the Committee for Unity and Progress. Nasser's Free Officers were much like the Young Turks when they took over in 1952. They too were seen as "progressives," "reformers," "uncorruptable," etc.

Getting back to the threat to the Yishuv in Israel. Jabotinsky discussed the threat in an article in Yiddish entitled "Activism," which he published in 1915 in Copenhagen in neutral Denmark [in Di Tribune, 10 October 1915]. This article was influential at the time, although it is barely remembered today. It may never have been published in English, although I am personally aware that the bulk of it was translated into English. Jabotinsky in 1915 was well aware of the Armenian genocide but believed that Jewish influence in the capitals of the Ottomans' major allies, Berlin, Vienna and Budapest, would prevent the Committee of Unity and Progress, the Ittihad government, from bringing upon the Jews in Israel the same fate as the Armenians were suffering.

Prof Yahuda was concerned about the fate of the Jews in Israel from the very beginning of WW I. He wrote [in German] to Oscar S Straus, a prominent Jewish leader in New York. Straus answered him[in English] on 23 October 1914:

I am in receipt of your letter of October 5th in regard to the condition of the Jews in Palestine, and a foreshadowing of what may happen to them should war break out between Turkey and Russia.
Straus wrote on 30 October 1914 to Nordau, who had also written to him of his concerns:
I also communicated with the German Ambassador, informing him that should Turkey enter the war on the German side and a massacre occur in Palestine, the civilized world would hold Germany, the dominant power, responsible.
A.S. Yahuda's background is of interest. He was born in Israel in 1877 (d. 1951) of a family that had come from Iraq. He was educated in Israel and later went to study in Europe, eventually becoming a professor at the Higher School of Jewish Studies in Berlin [Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums], and later at the University of Madrid. His book on parallels between the Biblical accounts of Egypt and archeological findings there --The Accuracy of the Bible-- seems to have been a major influence on Immanuel Velikovsky and his citation of Egyptian documents confirming the story of the Exodus [in Worlds in CollisionAges in Chaos, etc]. Yahuda also purchased personal papers of Isaac Newton, the famous physicist. These papers demonstrate Newton's interest in the Bible and the Jewish role in history, papers that the British universities were not interested in purchasing from Newton's family. These papers are now in Jerusalem at the Hebrew National and University Library.
The letters quoted above are in Yahuda's article in Hebrew, "The Effort to Defend the Jewish Population in Israel during the First World War," in A.R. Mal'akhy [ed.], Yisrael (New York: Shulsinger Bros, 1949-50), pp 73-84.

Prof. Biger is technically correct in most of what he said, but he avoids the conditions of those times that are necessary for understanding the Ottoman state's actions as well as those of the Jews in the NILI.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
UPDATING 7-22-2008 Eyewitness Testimony by a NILI Member on the Armenian Massaces
Here & here & here
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Coming: More on Hebron, more on peace follies, more on Jews in Jerusalem, etc.

Did a German Officer Prevent the Massacre of the Jews of Eretz Yisrael during World War I?


Did a German Officer Prevent the Massacre of the Jews of Eretz Yisrael during World War I?

German General Falkenhayn on the Temple Mt with Jamal
Pasha, Turkish governor of Syria and Palestine, 1916
(Library of Congress collection)
A version of this article was published in print edition of The Jerusalem Post Magazine on Friday, December 9, 2011, and appears in the Jerusalem Post's online Premium Zone.

Please note the important comments below by the historian Michael Hesemann about the role played by the Vatican in the saving of the Jews of Palestine.

The Ottoman war effort in Palestine in World War I was led by German officers, and their involvement was recorded by the American Colony photographers.  German General Erich von Falkenhayn, an able Prussian officer who served as the Chief of Staff of the German Army, was the commander of the Turkish and German troops during the critical 1917-1918 period.


A German photographic collection contains a picture of Falkenhayn leaving Palestine in 1918 and bears an amazing caption which claims that Falkenhayn prevented a Turkish massacre of the Jews of Palestine [Unfortunately, permission was not granted to use the photo, but it can be viewed here]:
"Falkenhayn and the German Staff need to be credited with have [sic] prevented an Ottoman genocide towards Christians and Jews in Palestine similar to the Armenian suffering. Wikipedia: 'His positive legacy is his conduct during the war in Palestine in 1917.  As his biographer Afflerbach claims, "An inhuman excess against the Jews in Palestine was only prevented by Falkenhayn's conduct, which against the background of the German history of the 20th century has a special meaning, and one that distinguishes Falkenhayn."'" (1994, 485)
General Erich Von 
Falkenhayn 
(Bundesarchiv)
Is it true? Did a German general protect the Jewish population of Palestine from massacre?  My first impulse was to find proof otherwise.


A Falkenhayn family genealogy, posted on the Internet, elaborates further:  "While he was in command in Palestine, he was able to prevent Turkish plans to evict all Jews from Palestine, especially Jerusalem.  As this was meant to occur along the lines of the genocide of the Armenians, it is fair to say that Falkenhayn prevented the eradication of Jewish settlements in Palestine."


Again, is this true, or is this self-serving German testimony to balance the stain of Nazism two decades later?
 
Falkenhayn and Jamal Pasha in the
backseat of a car in Jerusalem (The
New Zealanders in Sinai and 
Palestine, 1922)
 The German general is pictured here in a car with the Turkish ruler of Syria and Palestine, Jamal (also written as Cemal) Pasha, a ruthless ruler and one of the "Young Turks" leadership accused of carrying out the expulsion and massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians across the Ottoman-controlled region during World War I.  


Two of the "Young Turks" - Enver Pasha 
(center) and Jamal Pasha (right). Were they
responsible for the Armenian massacre?
What were they planning for the Jews?
Another leader was Enver Pasha who led the Ottoman Empire during World War I and on occasion visited Palestine where he was photographed with Jamal on the Temple Mount and in Be'er Sheva.


Jamal Pasha suspected the loyalties of the Jews of Palestine.  The explosion of nationalistic movements across the Empire was eroding Turkish control, and Arab and Jewish nationalism had to be crushed.


Zionists were particularly suspected of leading opposition to Ottoman rule, and leaders -- such as David Ben-Gurion -- were frequently arrested, harassed or exiled.  Many were relative newcomers from Russia, an enemy state.  Meanwhile, over the horizon, 1,000 Jewish volunteers for the British army, including some from Palestine, formed in 1915 the Zion Mule Corps, later known as the Jewish Legion, and they fought with valor against the Turks at Gallipoli.




The two Pashas ride into Be'er Sheva
where the British army later broke
through and continued to Jerusalem
The Jews of Palestine feared that after the Armenians, the Jews would be next.  The fear motivated some to form the NILI spy network to assist the British war effort.


Sarah Aaronsohn, NILI founder
Eitan Belkind, who infiltrated the Turkish army and served on Jamal Pasha's staff, witnessed the killing of 5,000 Armenians.  Later his brother was hung by the Turks as a NILI spy.  Sarah Aaronsohn of Zichron Yaakov was traveling by train and wagon from Turkey to Palestine in November 1915.  On the way she witnessed atrocities committed against Armenians.


In 1916 she joined her brother Aharon Aaronsohn, a well-known agronomist, in forming the NILI ring.  Caught by the Turks in October 1917 in Zichron Ya'akov and tortured, Sarah committed suicide before surrendering information.


At the time, the British were moving north out of Sinai and pressing along the Gaza-Be'er Sheva front.


Sarah's brother Aharon wrote in his memoirs, "The Turkish order to confiscate our weapons was a bad sign.  Similar measures were taken before the massacre of the Armenians, and we feared that our people would meet the same kind of fate."


"Tyrant" Hassan Bey
One Zionist activist described the cruelty of the Jaffa Commandant, Hassan Bey, already in 1914:
"It would suddenly come into his head to summon respectable householders to him after midnight...with an order to bring him some object from their homes which had caught his fancy.  Groundless arrests, insults, tortures, bastinadoes [clubs] -- these were things every householder had to fear."
The most egregious act undertaken by the Turks was the sudden expulsion of the Jews of Jaffa-Tel Aviv on Passover eve in April 1917.  Between 5,000 and 10,000 Jews were expelled.  The Yishuv in the Galilee and Jerusalem sheltered many Jewish refugees, but with foreign Jewish financial aid blocked by the Turks and the land suffering from a locust plague, many of the expelled Jews died of hunger and disease. By one account, 20 percent of Jaffa's population perished.


A German historian, Michael Hesemann, described the horrible situation:
"Jamal Pasha, the Turkish Commander who was responsible for the Armenian genocide... threatened the Jewish-Zionist settlers.  In Jaffa, more than 8,000 Jews were forced to leave their homes, which were sacked by the Turks.  Two Jews were hanged in front of the town gate, dozens were found dead on the beach.  In March, Reuters news agency reported a 'massive expulsion of Jews who could face a similar fate as the Armenians.'"
In 1921, a representative from Palestine reported to the 12th Zionist Congress on "Palestine during the War." 

“In Jerusalem [apparently in 1917] …dozens of children lay starving in the streets without anyone noticing them. Typhus and cholera carried off hundreds every week, and yet no proper medical aid was organized. … Through this lack of organization a considerable portion of the Jerusalem population perished. The number of orphans at the time of the capture of Jerusalem by the English Army was 2,700. “  He continued, “In Safed conditions were similar to what they were in Jerusalem; if anything, worse.… The death-rate here also was appallingly high; towards the end of the war the number of orphans was 500.”
What saved the Jewish community before the British completed their capture of Palestine in late 1917 and 1918? 


Several accounts confirm that German officers and diplomats protected the Jews.  


Col. Kress van
Kressenstein
The Zionist Congress report credited foreign consular officials who "during the whole period of their stay in the country showed themselves always ready to help, and performed valuable services for the Jewish Yishuv [the Jewish community].  Especially deserving of mention are the German vice-consul Schabiner in Haifa... The Jewish population also benefited by the presence of the head of the German military mission, Colonel Kress van Kressenstein, who on several occasions exerted his influence on behalf of the Jews."


Last month, Falkenhayn's biographer, Prof. Holger Afflerbach of Leeds University told me, "Falkenhayn had to supervise Turkish measures against Jewish settlers who were accused of high treason and collaboration with the English.  He prevented harsh Turkish measures -- Jamal Pasha was speaking about evacuation of all Jewish settlers in Palestine."


Kressenstein reviewing troops with
Jamal Pasha
The professor continued, "The parallels to the beginning of the Armenian genocide are obvious and striking: It started with Turkish accusations of Armenian collaboration with the Russians, and the Ottomans decided to transport all Armenians away from the border to another part of the Empire.  This ended in death and annihilation of the Armenians.  Given the fact that Palestine was frontline in late 1917, something very similar could have happened there to the Jewish settlers."


"Falkenhayn's role was crucial, " Afflerbach explained.  "His judgment in November 1917 was as follows: He said that there were single cases of cooperation between the English and a few Jewish radicals, but that it would be unfair to punish entire Jewish communities who had nothing to do with that.  Therefore nothing happened to the Jewish settlements.  Only Jaffa had been evacuated -- by Jamal Pasha."


Hesemann, the German historian, cites Dr. Jacob Thon, head of the Zionist Office in Jerusalem, who wrote in 1917, "It was special stroke of good fortune that in the last critical days General von Falkenhayn had the command.  Jamal Pasha in this case -- as he announced often enough -- would have expelled the whole population and turned the country into ruins...."


Falkenhayn had no particular love for Jews, according to his biographer, Afflerbach.  "He was in many aspects a typical Wilhelmine officer and not even free from some prejudices against Jews, but what counts is that he saved thousands of Jewish lives."


Why has no one heard about Falkenhayn and his role in protecting the Jews of Palestine?  Afflerbach responded, "The action was forgotten, because Falkenhayn prevented Ottoman actions which could have resulted in genocide... The incident was not discussed for decades.  It restarted only in the 1960s when scholars started to remember it."


Post Script:

Turkish troops evacuate Jerusalem
Turkish sources indicate considerable tension between Jamal Pasha and Falkenhayn. The following account appears in the English-language Turkey in the First World War:


"The British attack on Jerusalem began on 8 December. The city was defended by the XX Corps, commanded by Ali Fuad Pasha. Falkenhayn did not send reinforcements to Jerusalem because he did not want the relics and the holy places damaged because of severe fighting. [emphasis added.]"


"After withdrawing from Jerusalem, Ali Fuad Pasha sent a cable to Jamal Pasha: "Since my first day as the commander of the defense of Jerusalem, I did not receive any support except one single cavalry regiment.... The British, who benefited from the fatigue of my poor soldiers..., invaded the beautiful town of Jerusalem.  I believe that the responsibility of this disaster belongs completely to Falkenhayn!"


"Falkenhayn put the blame on Von Kressenstein and his chief of staff...Dissatisfaction with the advice and command of General Falkenhayn was growing.  His inability had resulted in the loss of the Gaza-Beersheba line.  His refusal to send reinforcements had resulted in the loss of Jerusalem.... Enver Pasha was losing patience too.  On 24 February 1918, he replaced Falkenhayn."

Irony of ironies. The Jews of Palestine owed their survival during World War I to a German army officer, and, by extension, the State of Israel's foundations were established thanks to Falkenhayn.  Some 25 years later the German army would assist in the genocide of the Jews of Europe. Ultimately, survivors of the Nazi genocide would find shelter in Falkenhayn’s legacy.

The writer served as a senior Israeli diplomat in Washington.  Today he serves as a public affairs consultant.

11 comments:

  1. Hi.
    Very interesting post, have put a link to your posting.
    Will.
    Reply
  2. Pave the Way Foundation has the original documented evidence that it was Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli (future Pope Pius XII) , in 1917 was approached by the Jewish community of Switzerland to intercede to protect the Jews of Palestine. He acted promptly and was assured that the German government would protect the Jews of Palestine even with use of arms. Go to www.ptwf.org to download these original Vatican documents.
    Reply
  3. Pius XII: Sympathy for Zionism
    New documents reveal how Eugenio Pacelli saved Jews in Palestine

    Eugenio Pacelli, who in 1939 became Pope Pius XII, actively supported Zionism during World War I, German historian Michael Hesemann claims in his book “The Pope Who Defied Hitler. The Truth About Pius XII.” Hesemann, who is one of the few historians with access to the Vatican Secret Archives, states he found evidence that Pacelli in 1917 as Apostolic Nuntius in Munich, successfully intervened in favour of the Jewish settlers in Palestine. He located five documents in the collection of papers from the “Nuntiatura Apostolica Baviera”, which under the headline “Guerra Europ, Palestina # 1, Pop. Giudaica e delle Cittá Santa delle Palestina” (European War, Palestine # 1, Jewish Population and the Holy City of Palestine) document his demarche. Originally, the Jewish Community of the neutral Switzerland had approached Pope Benedict XV., asking him to use his influence to prevent a Turkish aggression against the Jewish population of Palestine, which at that time belonged to the Ottoman Empire.

    Instead of approaching the Ottoman government in Constantinople, the Pope decided for a clever diplomatic move. The Muslims Turks would not care too much for the Pope, but certainly had an open ear for their most powerful ally, the German Reich. Since the Holy See did not have a Nuntiature in Berlin, but in Munich at that time, Pacelli would be resposnible. Benedict XV. knew that his Nuntius always was friendly towards Jewish affairs.

    Only a few weeks before he was sent to Munich, when Pacelli was Undersecretary of State of the Holy See, responsible for Foreign Affairs, Zionist leader Nachum Sokolow came to Rome to learn about the Holy See’s position on the question of a future Jewish state in Palestine. When he was received by Pacelli, he was deeply moved by his warmth and openness towards Zionism. To his uttermost surprise, Pacelli suddenly asked him if he would like to meet the Pope. Sokolow never thought this would be possible for a Jew. Thanks to Pacelli, he had a private audience with Benedict XV a few days later, which lasted for 45 minutes. The Pope called the Zionist initiative “providential” and “in accordance with God’s will” and relased Sokolow with the words: “I am sure we will be good neighbors”. Sokolows six-pages-report on this encounters, written on May 10, 1917, can be found in File A 18/25 in the Main Archive of Yad Vashem.

    Only a few month later, the Zionist settlers were in danger. The Turks suspected the Jews to be collaborators of the British, who had supported the Arab revolt and opened a second front in the southwest of the Ottoman Empire. In a similar way, two years before, the Armenians were suspected to be collaborators of the Russian, another enemy of the Turks.

    Cemal Pasha, the Turkish Commander who was responsible for the Armenian genocide with its 1.5 Million victims, threatened the Jewish-Zionist settlers. In Jaffa, more than 8000 Jews were forced to leave their homes, which were sacked by the Turks. Two Jews were hanged in front of the town gate, dozens were found dead on the beach. In March, Reuters news agency reported a “massive expulsion of Jews who could face a similar fate as the Armenians”. A report of the Zionist Office in Copenhagen expressed the worry that the Jews of Palestine would face extermination by hunger, thirst and diseases.
    Reply
  4. When on May 7, 1917 the Social Democrat representative Oskar Cohn, a Jew, brought the Anti-Jewish violence in Palestine on the agenda of the Reichstag, the German government refused to bother the Turkish ally. The deportation of the Jews was called a simple “security measure”. “This makes the Vatican initiative even more important”, Hesemann states, “another element of pressure had to force the German government to act. This came from the Catholic Church, with its 25 Million believers an important power in the Reich.”

    On the same day, when the Papal Secretary of State requested if he could “act for the protection of the Jewish sites and population of Jerusalem”, Pacelli drafted and sent a letter to the Bavarian Secretary of State, Ritter von Dandl, asking him for an urgent intervention in Berlin. A copy of both, the draft and the final version, Hesemann located in the Vatican Secret Archives – as well as the surprising reply.

    Other than half a year before, this time, the Berlin State Department reacted and sent a demarche to the Ottoman government. On November 27, 1917, according to an internal memorandum, they received the reply from Constantinople that “there is no reason to fear that the Turkish authorities in Palestine order measures against the Jewish population.”

    Consequently, Ritter von Dendl and through him Pacelli were informed two days later: “According to the available information from the Turkish side, care was already taken for the protection of the the holy sites of Jerusalem which are also subject of veneration by the Muslims and also for the population. Of course this includes the Jews, who don’t have to fear any exemptions.”

    On December 11, 1917, when the British Forces under command of General Allenby conquered Jerusalem, the Jews of Palestine could indeed feel relieved.

    The discovery of Pacellis correspondence in this matter confirms the claim of the Israeli diplomat and historian Pinchas Lapide (1922-1997), who stated in 1967 that
    Eugenio Pacelli contributed to “save the Jews of Jerusalem as well as the holy sites from an almost certain doom.” According to Lapide, the Vatican demarche was of vital importance for the safety of the Jewish settlers, since at that time the Turkish troops in Palestine were under the command of a German General, Erich von Falkenhayn. About him, his biographer Holger Afflerbach stated: “An inhuman excess against the Jews in Palestine was only prevented through Falkenhayns conduct, which has a special significance in respect to the German history of the 20th century.”

    The Zionists were aware of Pacellis demarche. Dr. Jacob Thon, head of the Zionist Office in Jerusalem, wrote in December 1917: “It was an special stroke of good fortune that in the last critical days General von Falkenhayn had the command. Cemal Pasha in this case – as he announced often enough – would have expelled the whole population and turned the country into ruins. We and the whole population, Christians as well as Muslims, must remember P.(acelli) with deep gratitude, since he saved the civil population from doom when he prevented the planned evacuation of this area.” (Letter to the German Embassy in Constantinople of Jan 1st, 1918, Microfilm K 1800 72/73, Zionist Central Archive, Jerusalem)

    Eugenio Pacelli continued to be a friend of Jews and Zionists, even when the Holy See adopted a rather sceptical policy. In 1922, the Vatican’s official newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano” expressed worries about the socialist ideas circulating among Zionist settlers. But only four years later, Pacelli encouraged German Catholics to join and support the “German Committee Pro Palestine to Support the Jewish Settlement in Palestine”, founded in 1926. Among its board members was not only Albert Einstein, but also Pacelli’s closest friend and advisor, the German politician and Catholic Prelate Dr. Ludwig Kaas.
    Reply
  5. The Nuntius also met Sokolov again. When the Zionist Leader visited Berlin in 1926, he wanted to see Pacelli and ask him for advice. Although the Nuntius was severly ill and at the hospital at that time, his physicians allowed a five-minutes-visit. Eugenio Pacelli let him leave only after ninety minutes. “It was obvious how interesting and uplifting the conversation with the Nuntius was, a discussion of historical questions, Jewish as well as Catholic”, the German Zionist Kurt Blumenfeld, who waited for Sokolov in the hospital library, revealed in his autobiography “Living the Jewish Question” (1962).

    Once again, the man who became Pope Pius XII proved to be a friend who always had an open ear for the affairs and problems of Jews.
    Reply
  6. (Sorry, for whatever reason the second part of my posted 3-part report is missing:) When on May 7, 1917 the Social Democrat representative Oskar Cohn, a Jew, brought the Anti-Jewish violence in Palestine on the agenda of the Reichstag, the German government refused to bother the Turkish ally. The deportation of the Jews was called a simple “security measure”. “This makes the Vatican initiative even more important”, Hesemann states, “another element of pressure had to force the German government to act. This came from the Catholic Church, with its 25 Million believers an important power in the Reich.”

    On the same day, when the Papal Secretary of State requested if he could “act for the protection of the Jewish sites and population of Jerusalem”, Pacelli drafted and sent a letter to the Bavarian Secretary of State, Ritter von Dandl, asking him for an urgent intervention in Berlin. A copy of both, the draft and the final version, Hesemann located in the Vatican Secret Archives – as well as the surprising reply.

    Other than half a year before, this time, the Berlin State Department reacted and sent a demarche to the Ottoman government. On November 27, 1917, according to an internal memorandum, they received the reply from Constantinople that “there is no reason to fear that the Turkish authorities in Palestine order measures against the Jewish population.”

    Consequently, Ritter von Dendl and through him Pacelli were informed two days later: “According to the available information from the Turkish side, care was already taken for the protection of the the holy sites of Jerusalem which are also subject of veneration by the Muslims and also for the population. Of course this includes the Jews, who don’t have to fear any exemptions.”

    On December 11, 1917, when the British Forces under command of General Allenby conquered Jerusalem, the Jews of Palestine could indeed feel relieved.

    The discovery of Pacellis correspondence in this matter confirms the claim of the Israeli diplomat and historian Pinchas Lapide (1922-1997), who stated in 1967 that
    Eugenio Pacelli contributed to “save the Jews of Jerusalem as well as the holy sites from an almost certain doom.” According to Lapide, the Vatican demarche was of vital importance for the safety of the Jewish settlers, since at that time the Turkish troops in Palestine were under the command of a German General, Erich von Falkenhayn. About him, his biographer Holger Afflerbach stated: “An inhuman excess against the Jews in Palestine was only prevented through Falkenhayns conduct, which has a special significance in respect to the German history of the 20th century.”

    The Zionists were aware of Pacellis demarche. Dr. Jacob Thon, head of the Zionist Office in Jerusalem, wrote in December 1917: “It was an special stroke of good fortune that in the last critical days General von Falkenhayn had the command. Cemal Pasha in this case – as he announced often enough – would have expelled the whole population and turned the country into ruins. We and the whole population, Christians as well as Muslims, must remember P.(acelli) with deep gratitude, since he saved the civil population from doom when he prevented the planned evacuation of this area.” (Letter to the German Embassy in Constantinople of Jan 1st, 1918, Microfilm K 1800 72/73, Zionist Central Archive, Jerusalem)

    Eugenio Pacelli continued to be a friend of Jews and Zionists, even when the Holy See adopted a rather sceptical policy. In 1922, the Vatican’s official newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano” expressed worries about the socialist ideas circulating among Zionist settlers. But only four years later, Pacelli encouraged German Catholics to join and support the “German Committee Pro Palestine to Support the Jewish Settlement in Palestine”, founded in 1926. Among its board members was not only Albert Einstein, but also Pacelli’s closest friend and advisor, the German politician and Catholic Prelate Dr. Ludwig Kaas.
    Reply
  7. Mhessemann. All this is very interesting. You seem very informed about Pius XII.

    I'm sure you can name a single Nazi (many of whom still considered themselves Catholics)that he ever excommunicated over their participation in the Holocaust. There had to be at least one, no? Maybe just one member of the Einsatzgruppen or a camp commandant?

    OK, I'll give you another shot..perhaps you can tell us about a single Vatican document issued during the Shoah that unambiguously stated that what Hitler was doing to the Jews was evil and that any Catholic who participated would be excommunicated?

    Pius XII undoubtedly saved some Jews during the Shoah, mostly in Rome. It's good that he did, but how many more would have been saved if the Pope had taken a stand earlier?

    BTW, Hitler only came to power in 1933 because Germany's Catholic Center Party agreed to be part of his coalition. Pius was Vatican Secretary of State at that time, he and the Church were under no illusions as to what Hitler had planned and had they spoken out, the Center party would never have joined Hitler's coalition and Hitler might never have even come to power.
    Reply
  8. Max Nordau and the Israel-born Jewish scholar AS Yahuda expressed the fear of Ottoman persecution of the Jews in Israel in a letter to Oscar Straus at the start of WW I. Straus conveyed his concern to the German ambassador to the US.

    http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2006/12/professor-bigers-turkophilic-fantasies.html
    Reply
  9. Mr. Rob, the Pope can only excommunicate Catholics. Anyone who became a member of the SS had, by order of Heinrich Himmler, leave his Church before; no Catholics were accepted into the SS. So how could the Pope have excommunicated non-Catholics? Instead, several Catholic Bishops, supported by Pacelli as Secretary of State of the Holy See and applauded by the Osservatore Romano,
    excluded active members of the Nazi party from the Catholic sacraments as early as 1930; the order was only lifted after the Nazi take-over of power, since they feared a new persecution, a step criticized by Pacelli.
    Indeed Pope Pius XII saved more than 850.000 Jews from the Shoah. To avoid a more severe persecution which would end all possibilities of the Church to help and save their victims, the Pope never accused the Nazis openly. Instead he not only only supported the US alliance with Stalin as a way to get rid of Hitler, but also conspired with the German military resistance who planned to assassinate Hitler - the same group which coordinated the unfortunately unsuccessful "Valkyre"-operation. This was the only time in younger history that a Pope was involved into a conspiracy to actually assassinate a head of state!
    From the very beginning, the Vatican had condemned Nazi antisemitism. As an example just take the Encyclical "Mit brennender Sorge", the only one ever written in German, read in every German church in 1937 - the harshest condemnation of a political system ever in the history of modern Papacy.
    The Vatican never had control over Catholic parties, neither in 1933 nor today. Indeed the coalition of the Center party with the Nazis in 1933 lead to the end of the Party itself; its leading member, Prelate Kaas, left the party and migrated to Rome, out of protest. Still there were Catholics who ignored the warning of their bishops and believed that they could control Hitler, who even considered him "the lesser evil", compared to Communism. Pacelli knew they were wrong. But the Lateran treaty of 1929 forced the Vatican to stay politically neutral and not to influence political parties in any part of the world. All you show is the Vatican's lack of political power, NOT Pacelli's position!
    Reply
  10. These posts carry lengthy quotes about the Armenian genocide written by Eitan Belkind, a member of the NILI spy group with the Aaronsohns.

    http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2008/05/activist-zionists-armenian-genocide-in.html

    http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2008/05/activist-zionists-armenian-genocide.html

    http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2008/07/jews-caught-up-in-armenian-genocide.html

    http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2008/07/armenian-genocide-german-role-in-it-as.html
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  11. That a massacre of the Jewish Community in Jaffa is questionnable. Aaron Aaronssohn (original founder of the NILI and older brother of Sarah) after meeting with Mark Sykes (of the Sykes Picot agreement) prepared a memorandum for Sykes to fire off to the English Zionist Federation. The aim was to obtain world attention especially from the Jewish Community in the United States who at that stage were not keen on the Zionist vision. By suggesting that Jewish communities would never be safe under a Muslim regime and thus needed a state of their own. It is notable that much of Jewish Palestinian community objected to the activities of the NILI and themselves were not in agreement with the Zionists. At that stage of the war British forces were moving up the eastern mediterranean coast there was a real Turkish concern that British forces would try a coastal landing around Jaffa. The entire population of Jaffa was instructed to move out not just Palestinian Jews. In fact some dispensation were given to Jewish families. As is not uncommon when homes, shops and businesses are deserted looting occurred. In June that year Spain, Sweden and the Vatican all neutral nations at that stage sent envoys to investigate the alleged abuses. Spanish and Vatican Envoys rapidly concluded that reports of Jewish massacres and persecutions were without foundation. The Swedish envoy wrote " the Jewish community of Jaffa had fared far better - and certainly no worse - than the resident Muslim population." The US consulate in Jerusalem also reported that the accounts of violence were "grossly exaggerated". In the original reports references were made to Jewish people being hung. Aaron Aaronshon ultimately conceded that no one had been hanged though some people had been arrested for looting.
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