Prefatory Remark RE Truman's scathing Letter about Self-Absorbed Greedy covetous Velociraptors impersonating Jews.  As we can see how the Zionist Master Race is exerting pressure on College Campuses through totalitarian means of state security, it's not hard to imagine Truman's frustration with a group who felt entitled to colonize all of Palestine (and then some) with no regard for indigenous inhabitants. Zionist velociraptors have bullied and lied to U.S. Presidents; threatened Jewish politicians refusing to support Apartheid Occupation; had Jewish students and faculty arrested across the country for support human rights for all people in Palestine (not just Jews)...Just be a person who claims Jewish identity cries anti-semitic doesn't mean their definition of anti-semitism has any merit---often, they're just shilling for the terrorist Bibi regime or saying they give up an argument and throw down their Semitic "Spade" Trump card. These kinds of people are velociraptors pretending to speak for all Jews---they don't.

President Harry Truman | Diary Entry on the Question of Palestine, Creating a Jewish "homeland"

'6:00 P.M. Monday July 21, 1947. 

Had ten minutes conversation with Henry Morgenthau about Jewish ship in Palistine [sic]. Told him I would talk to Gen[eral George] Marshall about it.''

He'd no business, whatever to call me.

The Jews have no sense of proportion, nor do they have any judgement on world affairs.

Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York on a supposedly temporary basis and they stayed.''

''When the country went backward -- and Republican in the election of 1946, this incident loomed large on the D[isplaced] P[ersons] program.''

''The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as DP as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog.''

''Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes.''

Look at the Congress attitude on D.P. – and they all come from DPs.

Sources <https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/truman-diary-entry-disparages-jews> from <https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/david-niles-harry-s-truman>

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/truman_diary_072147.jpg

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/truman_diary_072147a.jpg

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/truman_diary_072147d.jpg

Memo RE David Niles (jewish and committed zionist) to Harry S. Truman, May 12, 1947 (saying Arabs backed HItler, as did Ledi not mentioned)

Niles and Israel | Niles was a committed Zionist and was important in providing access to the White House for American Zionists.[6]

Niles' efforts on behalf of Jewish statehood earned him the support and praise of such figures as Chaim Weizmann and Moshe Sharett. Upon the establishment of the State of Israel and the opening of an Israeli embassy in Washington, Niles became close with Ambassador Eliahu Eilat as well as his successor Abba Eban. Niles was active in American Jewish communal politics. Along with his involvement in the United Jewish Appeal, he also maintained friendships with influential Jewish leaders such as Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Abram L. Sachar, along with Jewish supreme court justices Louis D. Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter.  From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Niles>

Gore Vidal | FOREWORD TO THE 1st EDITION, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of 3,000 Years, 

by Gore Vidal

Vidal, Gore, and ISRAEL SHAHAK. “FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION.” Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, 2nd ed., Pluto Press, 2008, pp. vi–viii. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt183q63d.3. Accessed 16 May 2024.

$2 million for TRUMAN to Whistle for Zionism!

Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S.Truman had been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he came to run for president. Then an American Zionist brought him two million dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop campaign train. ‘That’s why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast.’ As neither Jack nor I was an antisemite

(unlike his father and my grandfather) we took this to be just another funny story about Truman and the serene corruption of American politics.

Unfortunately, the hurried recognition of Israel as a state has resulted in forty-five years of murderous confusion, and the destruction of what Zionist fellow travellers thought would be a pluralistic state – home to its native population of Muslims,Christians and Jews, as well as a future home to peaceful European and American Jewish immigrants, even the ones who affected to believe that the great realtor in the sky had given them, in perpetuity, the lands of Judea and Samaria. Since many of the immigrants were good socialists in Europe, we assumed that they would not allow the new state to become a theocracy, and that the native Palestinians could live with them as equals. 

This was not meant to be. I shall not rehearse the wars and alarms of that unhappy region. But I will say that the hasty invention of Israel has poisoned the political and intellectual life of the USA, Israel’s unlikely patron.

Unlikely, because no other minority in American history has ever hijacked so much money from the American taxpayers in order to invest in a ‘homeland’. It is as if the American taxpayer had been obliged to support the Pope in his reconquest of the Papal States simply because one third of our people are Roman Catholic. Had this been attempted, there would have been a great uproar and Congress would have said no. But a religious minority of less than two per cent has bought or intimidated seventy senators (the necessary two thirds to overcome an unlikely presidential veto) while enjoying support of the media. In a sense, I rather admire the way that the Israel lobby has gone about its business of seeing that billions of dollars, year after year, go to make Israel a ‘bulwark against communism’. Actually, neither the USSR nor communism was ever much of a presence in the region. What America did manage to do was to turn the once friendly Arab world against us. Meanwhile, the misinformation about what is going on in the Middle East has got even greater and the principal victim of these gaudy lies – the American taxpayer to one side – is American Jewry, as it is constantly bullied by such professional terrorists as Begin and Shamir.

Worse, with a few honourable exceptions, Jewish-American intellectuals abandoned liberalism for a series of demented alliances with the Christian

(anti-semitic) right and with the Pentagon–industrial complex. In 1985 one of them blithely wrote that when Jews arrived on the American scene they ‘found liberal opinion and liberal politicians more congenial in their attitudes, more sensitive to Jewish concerns’ but now it is in the Jewish interest to ally with the Protestant fundamentalists because, after all, ‘is there any point in Jews hanging on, dogmatically, hypocritically, to their opinions of yesteryear?’ At this point the American left split and those of us who criticised our onetime Jewish allies for misguided opportunism, were promptly rewarded with the ritual epithet ‘antisemite’ or ‘self-hating Jew’.

Link to book

https://pearl-hifi.com/11_Spirited_Growth/01_Books/Jewish_History_Jewish_Religion__The_Weight_of_3K_Years_3rd_Edn.pdf

FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION

(pp. vi-viii)

Gore Vidal

https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt183q63d.3

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183q63d.3

From <https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183q63d>

2003jul10 Harry Truman's Forgotten Diary - 1947 Writings Offer Fresh Insight on the President

By Rebecca Dana and Peter Carlson | July 10, 2003 | WASHINGTONPOST

From <https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/07/11/harry-trumans-forgotten-diary/97827dbd-e24f-49f6-a800-2341a0688060/>

"The Jews, I find are very, very selfish," President Harry S. Truman wrote in a 1947 diary that was recently discovered on the shelves of the Truman Library in Independence, Mo., and released by the National Archives yesterday.

Written sporadically during a turbulent year of Truman's presidency, the diary contains about 5,500 words on topics ranging from the death of his mother to comic banter with a British aristocrat. But the most surprising comments were Truman's remarks on Jews, written on July 21, 1947, after the president had a conversation with Henry Morgenthau, the Jewish former treasury secretary. Morgenthau called to talk about a Jewish ship in Palestine -- possibly the Exodus, the legendary ship carrying 4,500 Jewish refugees who were refused entry into Palestine by the British, then rulers of that land.

"He'd no business, whatever to call me," Truman wrote. "The Jews have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgement [sic] on world affairs. Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York on a supposedly temporary basis and they stayed."

Truman then went into a rant about Jews: "The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes."

Yesterday, those comments startled scholars because Truman is known as a president who acted to help Jews in postwar Europe and who supported recognition of Israel in 1948, when his State Department opposed it.

"My reaction is: Wow! It did surprise me because of what I know about Truman's record," says Sara J. Bloomfield, director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Truman's sympathy for the plight of Jews was very apparent."

But Truman's comments were, Bloomfield says, "typical of a sort of cultural anti-Semitism that was common at that time in all parts of American society. This was an acceptable way to talk."

"Truman was often critical, sometimes hypercritical, of Jews in his diary entries and in his correspondences, but this doesn't make him an anti-Semite," says John Lewis Gaddis, a professor of history at Yale University and a prominent Cold War scholar. "Anyone who played the role he did in creating the state of Israel can hardly be regarded in that way."

Throughout his presidency, which lasted from 1945 to 1953, Truman was a prolific but sporadic diarist, jotting down his thoughts in diary books and on loose pieces of paper. This newly discovered diary appeared in a book titled "The Real Estate Board of New York, Inc., Diary and Manual 1947." The book, which begins with 160 printed pages of information about the Real Estate Board, was donated to the Truman Library in 1965, seven years before his death, and has sat on shelves there ever since. Apparently its tedious title scared scholars away and nobody noticed Truman's handwritten comments in the diary section in the back of the book until recently, when a librarian reshelving books happened to see them.

"This is probably the most important document the Truman Library has opened in 20 years," Michael J. Devine, the library's director, said in a prepared statement. "Once again, in this diary, we are able to hear that strong personal voice that Truman almost always projected in his writings."

In one memorable entry, Truman recounts a meeting at which he offered to yield the 1948 Democratic presidential nomination to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower if Gen. Douglas MacArthur campaigned for the Republican nomination.

Truman's comments on Eisenhower and MacArthur came in an entry dated July 25, 1947, years before Truman's famous firing of Gen. MacArthur during the Korean War. In the entry, he wrote of a discussion that afternoon with Eisenhower, who was then Army chief of staff.

"We discussed MacArthur and his superiority complex," Truman wrote. "Ike & I think MacArthur expects to make a Roman Triumphal return to the U.S. a short time before the Republican Convention meets in Philadelphia. I told Ike that if he did that that he (Ike) should announce for the nomination for President on the Democratic ticket and that I'd be glad to be in second place, or Vice President. I like the Senate anyway. Ike & I could be elected and my family & myself would be happy outside this great white jail known as the White House."

Truman did not reveal how Eisenhower, who was elected president as a Republican in 1952, reacted to his suggestion. He did note that he and Ike agreed to keep quiet about it: "Ike won't quot [sic] me & I won't quote him."

But Eisenhower did tell the story to confidants, and it leaked out and was recounted in "Eisenhower," a 1983 biography by Stephen E. Ambrose.

"At the time, Truman's chances for reelection appeared to be nil," Ambrose wrote. "Eisenhower assumed that Truman wanted to use him to pull the Democrats out of an impossible situation. The general wanted nothing to do with the Democratic Party; his answer was a flat 'No.' "

Eisenhower sat out the 1948 election, as did MacArthur. Truman ran against New York Gov. Thomas Dewey and won a stunning upset victory.

The diary contains several other interesting Truman comments.

He had praise for Gen. George C. Marshall, whom he appointed secretary of state: "Marshall is, I think the greatest man of the World War II. He managed to get along with Roosevelt, the Congress, Churchill, the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and he made a grand record in China."

On Jan. 6, he wrote: "Read my annual message. It was good if I do say it myself. . . . Clark Clifford did most of the work. He's a nice boy and will go places."

In that comment, Truman proved prescient. Clifford, then a 40-year-old Truman aide, later became an aide to President John F. Kennedy, secretary of defense under Lyndon Johnson and a major Washington power broker until his death in 1998.

On March 7, he wrote: "Doc tell's [sic] me I have Cardiac Asthma! Aint that hell. Well it makes no diff, will go on as before. I've sworn him to secrecy! So What!"

On July 28 -- "terrible day" -- Truman wrote about his mother's funeral. "Along the road cars, trucks and pedestrians stood with hats off. It made me want to weep -- but I couldn't in public. I've read through thousands of messages from all over the world in the White House study and I can shed tears as I please -- no one's looking."

But Truman's famed plain-spoken wit is also evident in the diary. On July 4, after attending Independence Day festivities in Monticello, Va., he wrote a passage that can only be called Trumanesque:

"Mrs. Astor -- Lady Astor came to the car just before we started from Monticello to say to me that she liked my policies as President but that she thought I had become rather too much 'Yankee.' I couldnt help telling her that my purported 'Yankee' tendencies were not half so bad as her ultra conservative British leanings. She almost had a stroke."

The president's diary, written in the back of a book donated to the Truman Library in 1965, was discovered by a librarian reshelving books. Truman wrote of Jews disparagingly. Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Truman in October 1950. Of the general, Truman wrote: "We discussed MacArthur and his superiority complex."

2003jul14 nyt opinion w. Safire | Truman on Underdogs

By William Safire | July 14, 2003 nytimes

From <https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/14/opinion/truman-on-underdogs.html>

A 5,500-word diary in President Harry Truman's handwriting, unnoticed for decades, recently turned up at the Truman Library in Independence, Mo. Three pages were mysteriously loose and interleaved in the journal.

On these detached and reinserted pages was this entry: ''6:00 P.M. Monday July 21, 1947. Had ten minutes conversation with Henry Morgenthau about Jewish ship in Palistine [sic]. Told him I would talk to Gen[eral George] Marshall about it.''

On that day, news reached the world that 4,500 Jewish refugees seeking entry to Palestine aboard the ship Exodus 1947 had been seized by British soldiers. These ''displaced persons'' had been placed on three vessels ostensibly headed to nearby Cyprus for detention until permitted entry to the Holy Land, where other Jews waited to welcome them. Instead, the homeless families, including a thousand children, were encaged on decks being taken back to a hostile Europe.

''He'd no business, whatever to call me,'' Truman wrote. Morgenthau, who had served as F.D.R.'s treasury secretary, was telephoning Truman as chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, and had an obligation to get through to the president to stop this further atrocity.

''The Jews have no sense of proportion,'' wrote the incensed Truman after he hung up, ''nor do they have any judgement on world affairs. Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York on a supposedly temporary basis and they stayed.'' These refugees were welcomed in Oswego, N.Y., just after the war, and Truman saw political implications in Gov. Thomas E. Dewey's support for Jewish immigration: ''When the country went backward -- and Republican in the election of 1946, this incident loomed large on the D[isplaced] P[ersons] program.''

Then the president vented his spleen on the ethnic group trying desperately to escape from Europe's hatred: ''The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as DP as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog.''

After equating the cruelty of Jews with that of Hitler and Stalin, Truman waxed philosophic about ingratitude: ''Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes.''

Truman wrongly assumed that the plight of all of Europe's displaced was the same -- ignoring the ''special treatment'' Hitler had inflicted on the Jews of the Holocaust, resulting in six million murdered, genocide beyond all other groups' suffering. The homeless survivors now faced sullen populations of former neighbors who wanted no part of the Jews' return.

This diary outburst reflected a longstanding judgment about the ungrateful nature of the oppressed; in a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt, he repeated that ''Jews are like all underdogs. When they get on top they are just as intolerant and as cruel as the people were to them when they were underneath.''

Did this deep-seated belief affect Truman's policy about taking immigrants into the U.S., or in failing to urge the British to allow the Exodus refugees haven in Palestine? Maybe; when the National Archives release was front-paged last week in The Washington Post, historians and other liberals hastened to remind us that the long-buried embarrassing entry was written when such talk was ''acceptable.'' The director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum dismissed it as ''typical of a sort of cultural anti-Semitism that was common at that time.''

For decades, I have refused to make such excuses to defend President Nixon for his slurs about Jews on his tapes. This is more dismaying.

Lest we forget, Harry Truman overruled Secretary of State George Marshall and beat the Russians to be first to recognize the state of Israel. The private words of Truman and Nixon are far outweighed by their pro-Israel public actions.

But underdogs of every generation must disprove Truman's cynical theory and have a duty to speak up. I asked Robert Morgenthau, the great Manhattan D.A., about Truman's angry diary entry, and he said, ''I'm glad my father made that call.''

2023may13 How a U.S. president known to disparage [SOME ANNOYING] Jews became godfather of Israel

by Gordon F. Sander | May 13, 2023 | washingtonpost.com

Seventy-five years ago Sunday, precisely on schedule at midnight, the first Jewish state in nearly 2,000 years was declared in Jerusalem.

Exactly 11 minutes later, the historic announcement was followed by another: The U.S. government had recognized that newborn state, called Israel.

The first announcement, which coincided with the end of the contentious British mandate over Palestine, was widely expected. The second was not, even for American officials. Some members of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations were so surprised by President Harry S. Truman’s decision that they broke into laughter:

Why would Truman, a pronounced antisemite, choose to become the American godfather of Israeli statehood?

Yet, of all the momentous decisions that fell to the 33rd U.S. president — dropping the atomic bomb, integrating the armed forces, going to war in Korea — Truman’s decision to recognize Israel stands out as perhaps the most misunderstood. The decision, which launched a fierce international alliance that today is being challenged, was in fact a long time coming.

Denigrations of Jews and the Jewish people were a running topic in Truman’s private correspondence with his wife and friends, as well as his conversations — particularly when he discussed Zionist leaders, and what he felt were their undue pressures on him as the end of the British mandate neared.

“In private,” David McCullough writes in “Truman,” his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, “Truman was a man who still, out of old habits of the mouth, could use [an antisemitic slur] or, in a letter to his wife, dismiss Miami as nothing but ‘hotels, filling stations, Hebrews, and cabins.’”

David Harris, the former longtime CEO of the American Jewish Committee, maintained that to simply call Truman an antisemite “would be grossly unfair,” citing Truman’s close friendship with his Jewish “Army buddy” Eddie Jacobson, his respect for Jewish history and his actions as a political leader.

Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, right, presents a bronze menorah as a birthday gift to Truman during a visit in 1951. Israeli ambassador to the United States Abba Eban stands with them. (Fritz Cohen/GPO/Getty Images)

In his biography, McCullough highlights a Chicago speech that Truman made in 1943, when he was still a U.S. senator from Missouri and the Nazi extermination apparatus was accelerating, as evidence of Truman’s prosemitic feelings. The thundering address, at the United Rally to Demand Rescue of Doomed Jews, portended his actions to come.

“The history of America in its fight for freedom and the history of the Jews of America are one and the same. … Merely talking about the Four Freedoms is not enough,” Truman declared, in an apparent dig at then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom he would serve as vice president. “This is the time for action. No one can any longer doubt the horrible intentions of the Nazi beasts. We know that they plan the systematic slaughter throughout all of Europe, not only of the Jews but of vast numbers of other innocent peoples.”

“Today, not tomorrow,” he bellowed in his closing comments, “we must do all that is humanly possible to provide a haven and place of safety for all those who can be grasped from the hands of the Nazi butchers.”

The president Truman criticized also picked him to be his running mate in 1944, and Truman assumed the presidency the following April, just weeks into his tenure as vice president, following Roosevelt’s death. Though he had presided over the end of World War II, Truman and his political advisers were seriously concerned in 1948 about his reelection chances, and they had reason to be. A Gallup poll that February suggested he probably would lose to New York Gov. Thomas Dewey, the eventual Republican nominee, or any of the other popular alternatives, including Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Truman’s waning chances, McCullough wrote, encouraged him further to recognize Israel. “Support for a Jewish homeland was extremely good politics in 1948,” he said, “possibly crucial in such big states as Pennsylvania or Illinois and especially in New York where there were 2.5 million Jews. Nor was there any doubt that the Republicans stood ready to do all they could for the Jewish cause and for the same reasons.”

But beyond the so-called “Jewish vote,” McCullough added, there was vast popular support in the United States for a Jewish homeland in 1948. “As would sometimes be forgotten, it was not just American Jews who were stirred by the prospect of a new nation for the Jewish people, it was most of America.”

“Politics and humanitarian concerns and foreign policy were closely, irrevocably intertwined,” wrote McCullough, who died last year. “Yet for Truman unquestionably, humanitarian concerns mattered foremost.”

Secretary of State George Marshall was among those who believed that Truman and his advisers were paying too much attention to both political and humanitarian concerns in their deliberations over Palestine, rather than strategic ones. And Marshall told Truman so at the tense Palestine strategy conference on May 12, two days before the mandate was about to expire.

“This is just straight politics,” the livid general burst out as Clark Clifford, Truman’s chief political adviser, stated the case for American recognition at that historic meeting. Marshall dismissed Clifford’s argument that Washington recognize the new Jewish state before Moscow, which six months earlier had backed the U.N. move to partition Palestine, laying the groundwork for independence.

Clifford continued with his presentation, as McCullough recounts it. “No matter what the State Department or anybody thinks,” he said, “we are faced with the actual fact that there is to be a Jewish state.”

Marshall was unmoved. In the most electric moment of the meeting, and the most excruciating for Truman, who revered Marshall, the latter declared that if the president followed Clifford’s advice and recognized the state, he would vote against him against in November.

The president’s “expression, serious from the start, changed not at all,” McCullough wrote. “He only raised his hand and said he was fully aware of the difficulties and dangers involved, as well as the political risks involved, which he himself would run.” Truman dismissed the tense meeting, suggesting that all present “sleep on the matter.”

Hence the suspense surrounding Truman’s final decision to recognize the new Jewish state two days later, as well as the shock with which it was received in some diplomatic circles, including at the State Department itself. “The American delegation at the United Nations was flabbergasted,” said McCullough. “Some American delegates actually broke into laughter, thinking the announcement must be somebody’s idea of a joke.”

It was not. Jubilation followed in Jerusalem, dancing in the streets of New York, and consternation and anger at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon and elsewhere, including and particularly in the Middle East.

Three-quarters of a century later, the decision looms as momentous.

“What would have happened had Truman yielded to Marshall and withheld US diplomatic recognition of the Jewish state?” Harris, the former AJC chief, wrote in an email to The Washington Post. “Would independence still have been declared on May 14, 1948? Most likely, I believe. The momentum for Jewish sovereignty was in high gear. But recognition added incalculable legitimacy and prestige.”

Truman regarded the pivotal role he played in Jewish history as one of his greatest achievements. Israelis wished that he would do even more in the days and months that followed, such as lifting the U.S. embargo on arms shipments, but none could deny his role as guarantor of Israeli independence. When the chief rabbi of Israel later called at the White House, he told Truman, “God put you in your mother’s womb so you would be the instrument to bring the rebirth of Israel after two thousand years.”

In an interview filmed at the Truman Library after his retirement, Truman said that he “antagonized a lot of people by recognizing the state of Israel as soon as it was formed. Well, I had been to Potsdam, and I had seen some of the places where the Jews had been slaughtered by the Nazis. Six million Jews were killed outright — men, women and children — by the Nazis.

“And it is my hope,” he said, “that they would have a homeland.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/05/13/harry-truman-israel-antisemitic/

https://twitter.com/MisgavINS/status/1713591674742419839

A humanitarian center for Gaza evacuees should be established in Sinai or, alternatively, in the south of the Gaza Strip in the area of ​​the former Dahaniya airport

highlights:

● In order to achieve the goals of the war in Gaza, as defined by the cabinet, the IDF will probably be required to enter the Gaza Strip and fight in a built-up area. Both from a military point of view, from a political point of view, and for humanitarian reasons, it is better for this fighting to take place when the small number of people are in the area mostly of uninvolved citizens.

● As in other cases around the world of intense fighting in a built-up area, Israel can initiate the evacuation of uninvolved civilians to predetermined areas where fighting will not occur. The condition for housing in these areas is non-participation in combat and complete disarmament.

● The first option in relation to the evacuation of the citizens from Gaza is to reach an agreement with the US, Egypt and the UN that will allow the establishment of an international humanitarian center in the Egyptian Rafah to treat the residents of Gaza. [THERE IS NO EGYPTIAN RAFAH--IT'S BEEN BULLDOZED!]

● Another option is to establish a center in the Gaza Strip, at the southeastern edge of the Strip (the location of the former Dahaniya Airport), where it will be possible to house hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who wish to do so. In addition to being an uninhabited area, this is a convenient area in terms of providing international humanitarian aid.

● From an examination of the population density in refugee camps all over the world, it appears that the population density can range from 25-100 thousand people per square kilometer. [ONE-THIRD MORE DENSE THAN MANHATTAN] This means that it is possible to live in such an area between 200-800 thousand people, all depending on the conditions. That is, such an area can house hundreds of thousands of Palestinian citizens far from the combat zone.

To read the full paper, by Dr. Adi Shortz and Attorney Yigal Ram -

Giora Eiland outlines plan to get hostages back alive [by completing a genocide and humanitarian crisis]

8 Oct, 2023 Ariel Whitman  en.globes.co.il

Major General (res.) Giora Eiland, former head of the Israel National Security Council, insists Israel must create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

"There is here a complete parallel with the Yom Kippur Way," says Major General (res.) Giora Eiland, former head of the Israel National Security Council. An intelligence surprise can always happen. If the enemy is planning something and you know and you are prepared, then they won't do what they are going to do, so there will always be an element of surprise."

"There was a huge surprise here. That's a fact," Eiland added. "But that's not the saddest fact. The bigger problem is that the army has to be built to respond even in an extreme situation of surprise, including at problematic times. Problematic timing, weekends, holidays and Saturdays. Six in the morning. Just when everyone is either on vacation or tends to be sleepy. The army should be able to respond to such a scenario routinely, and the response that the army thought it knew how to give, it thought it had a response to a surprise: very high-quality surveillance systems that detect every movement in Gaza and that has enough surrounding forces, that has control over the crossings and a strong barrier. It didn't live up to it. And when it happened, the army was unable to take control of the situation for a very long time."

"You have to know how to end this operation in a very strong way"

Eiland adds, "For the sake of comparison, I was an officer in an army outpost on the Golan Heights a short time before the Yom Kippur War. The atmosphere in the State of Israel back then was that everything was wonderful and there wouldn't be a war. They wouldn't dare to attack us. But in my outpost I behaved in exactly the opposite way. Not because I didn't believe the messages but because they weren't of interest to me."

He continued, "From my point of view I was responsible that every day, every hour and every minute, my outpost was ready to fight the best that it could. And it was of no interest to me what the likelihood was that this would happen. That's what you want to happen at the operational response level and as things look right now, and I say this cautiously, on the ground this completely the opposite of what we expected. From what I just described."

He added, "People act according to some kind of awareness that is put into their heads, and also from what you tell them. Many times there will be A, but they are aware of B - it's hard to change that. They put two things into our heads. Firstly, that our intelligence is so good, so that if there is any kind of attack we will know about it in advance, and the second thing is that the barrier we built for NIS 3 billion is so robotic and excellent that even if they tried, they would not be able to get past it. And you go to sleep in your tank or as an infantry soldier and you are 500 meters from the fence, but you say that if something happens, there will be intelligence, the barrier will help, so I don't have to worry. So instead of being in position and ready to fight at six in the morning, you are asleep and this is the result."

Will the weakness projected yesterday impact other arenas?

"Of course it will be very much felt. We don't know where this will go, but for that we also need to know how to end this campaign in a stronger way than we did in previous operations. It also requires much more far-reaching steps than Israel has ever taken. "Gaza is a state. You are fighting against a state, you are not only fighting against its army but against all of its capabilities, including its economy. 

That is why Israel should completely shut down everything that happens economically in Gaza. [COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT]

Goods and gas, fuel and electricity and water and food. Not only to win the battle, but also because we have so many hostages there. If we ever want to see the hostages alive, the only way is to create a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza. When international institutions shout about a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and bodies are piling up in the hospital and they cannot treat them, we will reply, 'We have no problem solving the real problems of Gaza, but give us back our prisoners first."

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 8, 2023.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2023.

https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-giora-eiland-outlines-plan-to-get-hostages-back-alive-1001459631

THREE CONDITIONS FOR COMPLETING HOLOCAUST AND TERRITORY LAND-GRAB AND NAZI-WORLD ORDER

CONDITION#1 - GAIN TOTAL CONTROL OF GAZA / DESTROY ALL / EXPEL GAZANS THEN  SECURE RELEASE OF HOSTAGES

CONDITION#2 SUCKER DUMBASS JOE BIDEN INTO ALLOWING US TO RAM 2.2 MILLION GAZANS AGAINST RAFAH GATE! (of Zionist Nazi-supremacy)

CONDITION#3 DUMBASS JOE--THIS IS JUST LIKE UKRAINE V. RUSSIA (EXCEPT WE'RE RUSSIA!) - BRAVE NEW NAZI WORLD ORDER

עם הכרעת חמאס יש להבהיר לארה"ב: זו גם המלחמה שלה | ישראל היום

Yossi Kuperwasser

Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser is a senior project manager at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) and a senior research fellow at Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy. 

He served as director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry and as head of the IDF Military Intelligence's Research Division. 

ARTICLE#1  With the decision of Hamas, it must be made clear to the US: this is also its war

Interpretation: Victory in the complex campaign against Iran and its metastases requires a clear decision in Gaza and Washington and Israeli unity • Taking control of Gaza will give Israel the necessary leverage to release the hostages, because as long as Hamas is not convinced that Israel is determined to eliminate its presence in Gaza - it has no interest in giving up the main asset in its possession

by Brigadier General Yossi Kopervasser

31 December 2023 www-israelhayom-co-il.translate.goog

Victory in the complex campaign against Iran and its metastases requires a clear decision in Gaza and Washington and Israeli unity. The multi-arena war between Iran and its metastases, led by Hamas, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood (Qatar, Turkey and their supporters around the world) and Israel, backed by the US and some Western countries, has been going on for close to three months. Each arena has its own unique characteristics, derived from the manner in which it was opened The war, from the considerations of the factors involved in it and their capabilities.

According to Defense Minister Yoav Galant, Israel fights in seven arenas (Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria, Yemen, Iraq and Iran), but in practice we must add to this the international arena, where Israel fights to preserve American backing, as well as for the legitimacy of its operation and existence and against anti-Semitism .

This is a no-choice war, which was imposed on Israel and began under extremely difficult opening conditions, and precisely because of this Israel and the US must end in victory. Several conditions are required to achieve it. 

CONDITION#1 - GAIN TOTAL CONTROL OF GAZA / DESTROY ALL / EXPEL GAZANS THEN  SECURE RELEASE OF HOSTAGES

The first and most important of all is a clear decision by Hamas in Gaza and the release of the abductees. The decision means Israeli control at the end of a phase The fighting is at a high intensity over the entire area, including Rafah and the Philadelphia axis (with the possible exception of international management of the displaced in the safe areas intended to ensure the peace of the population during the area's cleansing phase, which will probably last several months).

The end of the high-intensity fighting before this goal is achieved, only because we will reach a predetermined time point (the end of January?), will allow Hamas to claim that it has forced Israel to actually change the goals of the war and will encourage the supporters of the terrorist organization, who have set themselves the goal of ensuring the survival of Hamas in Gaza, if only on A small part of its surface. As long as Hamas controls the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing and is perceived by the population as a governing entity, it can claim that it has managed to survive, and by implication - to win.

It is also important to deepen the American understanding that a victory over Hamas requires creating a reality in the Strip that will not allow the renewed growth of terrorist elements. Therefore, not only Hamas, but also the weak and corrupt Palestinian Authority is not fit to accept responsibility for Gaza the day after. 

The reason: it continues to be committed to the fight against Israel, encourages terrorism (through incitement and paying salaries to banned terrorists) and sees Hamas as a legitimate organization that should be part of the leadership.

Taking control of the entire territory will give Israel the necessary leverage to release the abductees as well. As long as Hamas is not convinced that Israel is determined to eliminate its presence in Gaza, it has no interest in giving up the main asset in its possession, except in exchange for an Israeli commitment to avoid the complete takeover of the Strip.

CONDITION#2 SUCKER DUMBASS JOE BIDEN INTO ALLOWING US TO RAM 2.2 MILLION GAZANS AGAINST RAFAH GATE! (of Zionist Nazi-supremacy)

The second condition is reaching an understanding with the American administration, because this is America's war almost as much as it is Israel's war: 

• the continuation of the current situation in all arenas will harm its position in the region and on the global level, 

• and will exacerbate the threats to the security of American citizens and Washington's interests. 

• The Americans understand the importance of Israel's victory over Hamas in Gaza, but their stated desire to avoid being dragged into a regional war and the expectation from Israel to end the armed phase of the fighting even before the takeover of the entire strip is complete encourage Iran and its affiliates to continue to gradually escalate their actions, in the hope that the administration will stop Israel.

CONDITION#3 DUMBASS JOE--THIS IS JUST LIKE UKRAINE V. RUSSIA (EXCEPT WE'RE RUSSIA!) - BRAVE NEW NAZI WORLD ORDER

SUCKER JOE INTO BUYING ARGUMENT THAT SAFEGUARDING 'NAZI WORLD ORDER" REQUIRES EXTERMINATING 2.2 MILLIONGET USA TO UNDERSTAND DEFEATING HAMAS IS NECESSARY FOR THE REGIONAL & WORLD ORDER 

The defeat of Hamas and American understanding that this is also a war for the regional and world order, which will translate into a willingness to act to win, if the Iranians and their allies do not stop their power moves and give up their capabilities, are essential for creating political pressure on Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the militias subordinate to Iran, and for an effective operation of military force against them if necessary. 

• This is a condition for creating a new security reality along the northern border that will give the residents a sense of security and allow them to return to their homes; 

• This is a condition for the security of navigation in the Strait of Bab al-Mandab; 

• This is a condition for curbing the Iranian nuclear program, which again accelerated during the war; 

• And this is a condition for promoting the effort to establish a pragmatic regional center of gravity, with normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia at its heart. Israel and the US need each other in these arenas, and Israel must reinforce to the Americans this mutual dependence and ownership in order to ensure their commitment to achieving the common goals.

Israel's ability to realize the two conditions for victory will be largely influenced by its ability to shake off the willful blindness that has characterized it regarding the intentions of its enemies [nazi state of perpetual war and crisis] and discover internal unity [nazi talk]. This is not only the clear message of the fighters and the fallen, but also the strategic order of the hour. The greater and clearer the unity [OF NAZI HOLOCAUSTING AN, the easier it will be for Israel to mobilize its petitions and American support to achieve the goals of the war.

More from Israel today

• Fumbles in a building, locates a terrorist and attacks him: documentation of the activity of sting dogs in Jabaliya

• "Everyone is talking about your bravery, rest in peace": Captain Harel Itach, who fell in the battle in the Gaza Strip, was laid to rest

• "There is a violation of the right to vote and be elected - the voice of the people must be heard"

The author was the head of the research division at AMAN, and is now a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public and State Affairs and a fellow at the Misgav Institute

• PHOTO Prime Minister Netanyahu, photo: Kobi Gideon/L.A.M

• PHOTO: Houthi rebels on a motorboat in the Red Sea, photo: AFP

• PHOTO: War of Iron Swords, renewal of fighting in Gaza, photo: AFP

• PHOTO: Fighting in Gaza, archive, photo: IDF spokesman

• PHOTO: The continuation of the current situation in all arenas will harm the position of the USA in the region and at the global level, photo: AFP

• PHOTO: Damage to Gaza during the round of fighting, photo: Reuters

ARTICLE#2 [very similar article to Misgav article above] Israel must send a clear message to the US

israelhayom.com 01-02-2024

Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser is a senior project manager at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) and a senior research fellow at Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy. He served as director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry and as head of the IDF Military Intelligence's Research Division.

https://jcpa.org/key-people/  info@jcpa.org

A decisive victory in the complex campaign against Iran and its proxies requires a clear outcome in Gaza, as well as Israeli unity. The multi-front war – with Iran and its proxies, 

• chiefly Hamas, 

• backed by the Muslim Brotherhood (Qatar, Turkey, and their supporters worldwide) on the one hand, 

• and Israel, the US, and parts of Western support on the other hand – has been going on for close to three months now. 

Each front has its own unique characteristics, derived from how the war began, the considerations of the actors involved, and their capabilities.

According to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Israel is fighting on seven fronts (Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran), but in practice, the world stage forms another arena, and this is where Israel is fighting to maintain American backing as well as for the legitimacy of its actions and existence, and against antisemitism.

This is not a war of choice; it has been forced upon Israel, [bullshit, no imminent threat] and which began under extremely difficult opening conditions. And for that very reason, both Israel and the US must end it in victory. Achieving this requires several conditions. 

CONDITION#1 - GAIN TOTAL CONTROL OF GAZA / EXPEL GAZANS THEN  SECURE RELEASE OF HOSTAGES

The first and most important is a clear defeat of Hamas in Gaza and the release of the captives. This means Israeli control at the end of high-intensity fighting over the entire area, including Rafah and the Philadelphi Route (excluding perhaps international management of displaced persons in secured areas designated to ensure the safety of the population during the mopping-up stage, which will likely last several months).

• Ending the major combat operations before this goal is achieved just because we've reached a predetermined point in time (end of January?) will allow Hamas to claim that it forced Israel to effectively change its war goals in practice, and will encourage supporters of the terrorist organization who set themselves the goal of ensuring Hamas' survival in Gaza, even if only in a small part of its territory. As long as Hamas controls the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing and is perceived by the population as a governing entity, it would be able to claim it had managed to survive, and by implication – won.

• It is also important to drive home the message – in talks with the US – that defeating Hamas requires creating a reality in the strip that will not allow terrorists to rear their heads. Therefore, not only Hamas but also the weak and corrupt Palestinian Authority is unsuitable to take over responsibility for Gaza post-war: It remains committed to the armed conflict against Israel, encourages terror (through incitement and payment of salaries to imprisoned terrorists), and sees Hamas as a legitimate organization that should be part of the leadership.

• Gaining control over the entire area will also give Israel the necessary leverage to release the captives. As long as Hamas is not convinced that Israel is determined to eliminate its presence in Gaza, it has no interest in giving up its main asset, other than in return for an Israeli commitment to refrain from completing the takeover of the strip.

CONDITION#2 SUCKER DUMBASS JOE BIDEN INTO ALLOWING US TO RAM 2.2 MILLION GAZANS AGAINST RAFAH GATE! (of Zionist Nazi-supremacy)

The second condition is reaching an understanding with the American administration that this is the US war almost to the same extent as it is Israel's: 

• Continuation of the current state of affairs on all fronts will damage its standing in the region and globally, 

• and exacerbate threats to the security of American citizens and Washington's interests. 

• The Americans understand the importance of Israel's victory over Hamas in Gaza, but their stated desire to avoid getting dragged into a regional war and have Israel end major combat operations even before completing the takeover of the entire strip encourages Iran and its proxies to continue gradually escalating their use of force, in the hope that the administration will stop Israel.

CONDITION#3 DUMBASS JOE--THIS IS JUST LIKE UKRAINE V. RUSSIA (EXCEPT WE'RE RUSSIA!) - BRAVE NEW NAZI WORLD ORDER

Defeating Hamas and convincing the US that this is also a war over the regional and global order – and translating this into a willingness to win – are key in the effort to exert diplomatic pressure on Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the pro-Iranian militias, and for effective military force against them if necessary.

This is the condition to create a new security reality along the northern border that will give residents a sense of security and allow them to return home; this is the condition to secure shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait; this is the condition to curb Iran's nuclear program, which has again accelerated during the war; and this is the condition to promote efforts to establish a pragmatic regional center of gravity with normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia at its core. Israel and the US need each other in these arenas, and Israel must dive home this interdependence and mutual benefit to ensure Washington's commitment to achieving common goals.

Israel's ability to meet the two conditions for victory will be greatly impacted by its ability to shake off the self-induced blindness that characterized its attitude towards its enemies' intentions and display internal unity. This is not only the clear message communicated by the troops and the fallen, but also a strategic imperative. The greater and clearer the unity, the easier it will be for Israel to harness its capabilities and American support in order to achieve its war aims.

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https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/israel-must-send-a-clear-message-to-the-us/

Israel, the Chief of Defense Staff: "Gaza will never be the same again"

"We will do everything to bring the hostages home"

October 12, 2023

© Agenzia Nova - Reproduction reserved

La Gaza Strip "it will never be the same again" and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will do "everything to bring the hostages home". The Israeli Chief of Defense Staff, General, said this Herzi Halevi, in his first statements to the press after the attack by the Palestinian movement Hamas on Israel, carried out on Saturday 7 October, in which around 1.300 people died.

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According to Halevi, there are approximately 200 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, both Israelis and foreigners. “We are killing many terrorists, many commanders, destroying the terrorist infrastructure that supported this terrible and brutal crime,” Halevi continued.

The Chief of Staff of the Defense he explained: “Five days have passed since a murderous, brutal and astonishing incident. The massacre by murderous Hamas terrorists – monsters – of our children, our wives and our people is animalistic, it is inhumane.

The IDF is fighting ruthless terrorists who have committed unimaginable acts,” he continued. Addressing the Hamas leader in Gaza, Halevi said: “Yahya Sinwar, the ruler of Gaza Strip, decided on this horrible attack, and therefore he and the entire system under him are doomed. We will attack them, we will dismantle them, we will dismantle their system." Vowing to investigate the surprise effect caused by the attack, Halevi said: "We will learn, we will investigate, but now is the time for war."

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Law of war maimondides | sefaria.org

LAWS OF SOVEREIGNS AND WARS.

These comprise twenty-three precepts, 

ten of which are affirmative, and 

thirteen are negative precepts. The detailed list is as follows:

1) to choose a king from among the Israelites;

2) not to choose him from the community of proselytes ;

3) that he shall not have many wives;

4) that he shall not acquire many horses;

5) that he shall not amass much gold and silver;

6) to destroy the seven (Canaanite) nations;

7) not to let any one of them live;

8) to blot out the seed of Amalek;

9) to remember what Amalek did to us;

10) not to forget his evil deeds, how he treacherously lay in wait on the way;

11) not to reside permanently in the land of Egypt;

12) to offer terms of peace to the inhabitants of a city that is besieged and to deal with it in the way set forth in the Torah, in case the city makes, or does not make peace;

13) not to seek peace with Ammon and Moab. This rule only applies, when besieging their cities;

14) when engaged in a siege, not to destroy fruit trees;

15) to prepare a place of convenience whither the members of the camp shall repair;

16) to have a paddle to dig therewith;

17) to anoint a priest to speak to the men of the army in wartime;

18) that the man who has taken a wife, erected a dwelling, or planted a vineyard shall rejoice a full year; and such newly wed men are sent back home from the war;

19) not to draft them for any purpose; they are not to go out for municipal service, service of the troops, nor any similar duty;

20) not to be afraid nor to retreat in the hour of battle;

21) the law of a beautiful woman taken captive in war;

22) that she is not to be sold;

23) that she is not to be retained in servitude, after cohabitation.

LAWS OF SOVEREIGNS AND WARS.

הלכות מלכים ומלחמות. יש בכללן שלוש ועשרים מצוות – עשר מצוות עשה, ושלוש עשרה מצוות לא תעשה; וזה הוא פרטן: (א) למנות מלך מישראל; (ב) שלא יימנה מקהל גרים; (ג) שלא ירבה לו נשים; (ד) שלא ירבה לו סוסים; (ה) שלא ירבה לו כסף וזהב; (ו) להחרים שבעה עממים; (ז) שלא להחיות מהן נשמה; (ח) למחות זרעו של עמלק; (ט) לזכור מה שעשה עמלק; (י) שלא לשכוח מעשיו הרעים ואריבתו בדרך; (יא) שלא לשכון בארץ מצריים; (יב) לשלוח שלום ליושבי העיר כשצרים עליה, ולדון בה כאשר מפורש בתורה, אם תשלים ואם לא תשלים; (יג) שלא לדרוש שלום מעמון ומואב בלבד, כשצרים עליהן; (יד) שלא להשחית אילני מאכל במצור; (טו) להתקין יד שייצאו בו בעלי המחנה להיפנות בו; (טז) להתקין יתד לחפור בו; (יז) למשוח כוהן לדבר באוזני אנשי הצבא בשעת המלחמה; (יח) להיות מארס ובונה בניין ונוטע כרם שמחים בקניינם שנה תמימה, ומחזירין אותן מן המלחמה; (יט) שלא יעבור עליהן דבר, ולא ייצאו אפילו לצורכי העיר וצורכי הגדוד והדומה להן; (כ) שלא לערוץ ולחזור לאחור בשעת מלחמה; (כא) דין יפת תואר; (כב) שלא תימכר יפת תואר; (כג) שלא יכבשנה לעבדות אחר שנבעלה.

Bible as a recurrent enemy of the Israelites:[19]

• In Exodus 17:8–16,[20] during the Exodus from Egypt, the Amalekites attack the Israelites encamped at Rephidim, but are defeated. Moses orders Joshua to lead the Israelites into battle, while Moses, Aaron and Hur watch from a nearby hill. When Moses' hands holding his staff are raised, the Israelites prevail, but when his hands are lowered, the Israelites falter. He sits with his hands held up by Aaron and Hur until sunset, securing the Israelite victory.

• In Deuteronomy 25:17–19,[21] The Israelites are specifically commanded to "blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven" once they have taken possession of the Promised Land in retribution for "what Amalek did to [them] on the way as [they] were coming out of Egypt", a reference to the Amalekite attack on the Israelites at Rephidim. Earlier, in Deuteronomy 7:1–16[22] and Deuteronomy 25:16–18,[23] they are commanded to utterly destroy all the inhabitants of the idolatrous cities in the promised land and their livestock; scripture purports that King Saul ultimately loses favor with Yahweh for failing to kill King Agag and the best livestock of the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15[24] in defiance of these commandments.

• In Numbers 14:45,[25] the Amalekites and Canaanites kill a group of Israelites that tried to enter the hill country of the Amorites without Moses's permission.

• In Judges 3:13,[26] Amalek, and their Moabite and Ammonite allies, defeat Israel so that the Moabites could oppress them. Judges 10:11–13[27] confirms Amalek as being one of the many oppressors of Israel.

• In Judges 6:1–6,[28] Amalek, and their Midianite allies, destroy Israelite farms "as far as Gaza", inducing a famine. They also help the Midianites wage wars against Israel, according to Judges 6:32–34[29] and Judges 7:11–13.[30]

• In 1 Samuel 15:1–9,[31] Samuel identifies Amalek as the enemy of Israelites, saying "Thus says the Lord of hosts: I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt," a reference to Exodus.[32] God then commands Saul to destroy the Amalekites, by killing man, woman, infant and suckling.[33] This massacre is believed to be a retelling of the raids in 1 Samuel 14:48,[34][35] although it additionally specifies that it occurred in the "city of Amalek", which was believed to be the "principal place of arms"[36] or the "metropolis" of Amalek.[37] In 1 Samuel 15:33,[38] Samuel identifies king Agag of Amalek as an enemy and killer, saying "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women."

• In 1 Samuel 27:8–9,[39] David and his men conduct raids against the Amalekites and their Geshurite and Gezirite allies. He kills every man and woman but takes sheep, cattle, donkey, camels and clothing. These Amalekites were theorized to be refugees who fled from Saul or a separate Amalekite faction that dwelt to the south of Israel. Gili Kluger believes these narratives were anti-Saul propaganda, designed to make him appear weak compared to David, since no losses were attributed to David.[40]

• According to 1 Samuel 30:1–2,[41] the Amalekites invaded the Negev and Ziklag in the Judean/Philistine border area towards the end of the reign of King Saul, burning Ziklag and taking its citizens away into captivity. David led a successful mission against the Amalekites to recover "all that the Amalekites had carried away".[42]

• In 2 Samuel 1:5–10,[43] an Amalekite tells David that he found Saul leaning on his spear after the battle of Gilboa. The Amalekite claims he euthanized Saul, at Saul's request, and removed his crown. David gives orders to his men to kill the Amalekite for killing the anointed king, believing him to be guilty by admission.[44]

• In 1 Chronicles 4:43,[45] the Simeonites kill the remaining survivors of Amalek and live in their settlements.

• In Psalm 83:7,[46] Amalek joins Israel's other historic enemies in annihilating Israel. Their attempts are thwarted by God. Although most scholars believe the passage refers to a real historical event, they are unsure which event it should be identified with.[47] One likely answer is that it occurred during the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the 9th to 7th centuries BC.[48]

Interpretation

Judaism

"Davidster" (Star of David) by Dick Stins is a Holocaust memorial in The Hague. The text at the side (in Dutch and Hebrew) is from Deuteronomy 25:17, 19 – "Remember what Amalek has done to you ... do not forget."

In the Mishneh Torah, Rambam derives three commandments, two positive and one negative, related to references to Amalek in the Torah:

#Type / Commandment / Source

59 / Negative / Not to forget the wicked deeds which Amalek perpetrated against us[49]  / "Do not forget" (Deut. 25:19)

188 / Positive  / To exterminate the seed of Amalek[50] / "You shall blot out the memory of Amalek" (Deut. 25:19)

189 / Positive /  To constantly remember what Amalek did to us[51] / "Remember what Amalek did to you" (Deut. 25:17)

Many rabbinic authorities such as Maimonides ruled that the commandment only applies to a Jewish king or an organized community, and cannot be performed by an individual.[52] According to Rashi, the Amalekites were sorcerers who could transform themselves to resemble animals, in order to avoid capture. Thus, in 1 Samuel 15:3, it was considered necessary to destroy the livestock when destroying Amalek.[53] According to Haggahot Maimuniyyot, the commandment only applies to the future messianic era and not in present times; this limitation is widely supported by medieval authorities.[54]

Maimonides elaborates that when the Jewish people wage war against Amalek, they must request the Amalekites to accept the Seven Laws of Noah and pay a tax to the Jewish kingdom. If they refuse, they are to be executed.[55]

Other Talmudic commentators argued that the calls to spare no Amalekite or "blot out their memory" were metaphorical[56] and did not require the actual killing of Amalekites. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch said that the command was to destroy "the remembrance of Amalek" rather than actual Amalekites.[57] The Sfat Emet interpreted the command as fully hating Amalek, without performing any physical action.[58] The Chofetz Chaim said that God would perform the elimination of Amalek and that Jews only need to remember what Amalek did to them.[59]

Isaac S.D. Sassoon believes that the cherem commands existed to prevent the Jewish community from being endangered but believes people should think twice before literally following them.[60] Nathan Lopes Cardazo argues that the Torah's ethically questionable laws were intentional since they were a result of God working with an underdeveloped world. He believes that God appointed the Sages to help humanity evolve in their understanding of the Torah.[61]

Christianity

Theologian Charles Ellicott explains that the Amalekites were subject to cherem in the Book of Samuel for the purposes of incapacitation, due to their 'accursed' nature and the threat they posed to the commonwealth of surrounding nations.[62] Matthew Henry considers the cherem to be defensive warfare since the Amalekites were invaders.[63] John Gill describes the cherem as the law of retaliation being carried out.[64]

According to Christian Hofreiter, almost all Christian authorities and theologians have historically interpreted the cherem passages literally. He states that "there is practically no historical evidence that anyone in the Great Church" viewed them as being purely an allegory. In particular, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin have defended a literal reading of these passages at length. Origen of Alexandria is sometimes cited as having viewed the cherem passages allegorically; Hofreiter argues that although Origen prioritized a spiritual interpretation of the Bible, he did not deny that the herem passages described historical events.[65]

Paul Copan argues that the cherem commands were hyperbolic since the passages contain merisms such as "man and woman"[66] and Near Easterners valued "bravado and exaggeration" when reporting warfare.[67][68] Kluger believes this is an earnest attempt to absolve the Israelites, and their God, of moral responsibility. Nonetheless, she argues Copan's interpretation still "normalizes mass violence" and "hostility towards targeted groups".[40]

Islam

Ibn Khaldūn affirms that God ordered Saul, the king of Israel, to depose the Amalekites, which caused Haman's hostility to the Jews in the Book of Esther.[69]

Modern academia

Some commentators have discussed the ethics of the commandment to exterminate all the Amalekites, including children, and the presumption of collective punishment.[70][71][72][73] It has also been described as genocidal, according to genocide scholars like Norman Naimark.[74][75][76][77]

Kluger believes that the extermination verses can be explained by the Israelites seeing the Amalekites as their "unwelcome brother" and the "rejected son", possessing all the negative qualities that the Israelites inherently saw within themselves, which Kluger sees as a form of self-hatred. However, she notes that the Hebrew Bible is surprisingly neutral when describing the Amalekites and that the texts do not provide an adequate explanation on why they were singled out for complete annihilation, compared to the Egyptians and Canaanites for example.[40]

Ada Taggar-Cohen observes that cherem commands were not uncommon in the ancient Near East. Their purpose was to show that the deity was on the aggressor's side and that the enemy deserved said deity's wrath for their "sins". It also allowed kings to pursue militarist policies without taking moral responsibility.[78]

C.L. Crouch considers the cherem commands to be an exceptional component to Israelite and Judahite warfare since they were erratically applied, even in the early stages of national and ethnic identity formation. They were an extreme means to eradicate the threat of chaos. Similar attitudes were held by Assyrian rulers such as Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal.[79]

Historicity

No reference to Amalek or the Amalekites has been found in surviving Egyptian and Assyrian monumental inscriptions and records, even though both groups recorded various tribes and peoples of the Levant in the relevant time period(s). Therefore, Hugo Winckler concluded that there were no Amalekites and that the Biblical stories concerning them were entirely ahistorical and mythological.[80] Although archaeological research has improved knowledge about nomadic Arabs, no specific artifact or site has been linked to Amalek with certainty.[4]

It is possible that some of the fortified settlements in the Negev highlands and Tel Masos, which is near Beer-sheba and possibly equivalent to Hormah,[81] have Amalekite connections.[82] If this hypothesis is correct, it is likely that Saul's anti-Amalekite campaigns were motivated by a strategic desire to wrest control of copper production at Tel Masos. Copper was valuable to the early Israelites and their theology and ritual.[83]

Archaeological evidence from the Tell el-Qudeirat fortress and Horvat Haluqim in the Negev, dated to the late 11th to early 10th century BC, could corroborate with the Biblical Israelite-Amalekite confrotations, during the reigns of Saul and David. Bruins discovered that their inhabitants were semi-nomadic agro-pastoralists. They lived in tents, rode camels, participated in the copper trade and worshipped gods at masseboth shrines. Oval fortresses were built during the same time period of the aforementioned confrontations. However, other scholars argue that these settlements were inhabited by Edomites or Simeonites.[84]

Alternative theories of origin

Gustave Doré, The Death of Agag. "Agag" may have been the hereditary name of the Amalekite kings. The one depicted was killed by Samuel (1 Samuel 15).

In Genesis 14:7, the "field of the Amalekites" is mentioned, but the person who is named Amalek was not born yet.

Some commentators claim that this passage is a reference to the territory which was later inhabited by the Amalekites.[85] C. Knight elaborates this concept by making a comparison: one might say "Caesar went into France", though Gaul only later became known as France.[7]

Alternatively, during the Islamic Golden Age, certain Arabic writings claimed that the Amalekites existed long before Abraham.[86] Some Muslim historians claimed that the Amalekites who fought against Joshua were the descendants of the inhabitants of North Africa. Ibn-Arabshâh claimed that Amalek was a descendant of Ham, son of Noah.[7][86] However, the name Amalek may have been given to two different nations. The Arabians mention Imlik, Amalik, or Ameleka among the aborigines of Arabia, the remains of which were mingled with the descendants of Qahtan (Joktan) and Adnan and became Mostarabs or Mocarabes, that is, Arabians were mixed with foreigners.[7]

John Gill believes the Amalekites of Genesis 14:7 were equivalent to the Hamite-Arabian Amalekites described by Muslim scholars. He argues the Amalekites were always allied with the Canaanites who descended from Ham, were conquered by the Shemite Chedorlaomer, existed before the Edomite Amalekites thus affirming Numbers 24:20, and that the Edomites never rescued these Amalekites from Saul's campaigns due to inter-tribal feuds.[87]

By the 19th century, many Western theologians believed that the nation of Amalek could have flourished before the time of Abraham. Matthew George Easton theorized that the Amalekites were not the descendants of Amalek by taking a literal approach to Genesis 14:7.[88] However, the modern biblical scholar Gerald L. Mattingly uses textual analysis to glean that the use of Amalekite in Genesis 14:7 is actually an anachronism,[4] and in the early 19th century, Richard Watson enumerated several speculative reasons for the existence of a "more ancient Amalek" than Abraham.[86]

In his exegesis of Numbers 24:20, concerning Balaam's utterance: "Amalek was the first one of the nations, but his end afterward will be even his perishing", Richard Watson attempts to associate this passage to the "first one of the nations" that developed post-Flood.[86] According to Samuel Cox, the Amalekites were the "first" in their hostility toward the Israelites.[89]

Abrahamic traditions

Jewish traditions

Amalek is the archetypal enemy of the Jews and the symbol of evil in Jewish religion and folklore.[90] Nur Masalha, Elliot Horowitz, and Josef Stern suggest that the Amalekites represent an "eternally irreconciliable enemy" that wants to murder Jews. In post-biblical times, Jews associated contemporary enemies with Amalek or Haman and, occasionally, believed pre-emptive violence is acceptable against such enemies.[91] Groups identified with Amalek include the Romans, Nazis, Stalinists, ISIS,[92] and bellicose Iranian leaders such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[93][94] More metaphorically, to some Hasidic rabbis (particularly the Baal Shem Tov), Amalek represents atheism or the cynical rejection of God, which leads to unethical hedonism. This is sometimes known as the "Amalekite doctrine".[95] In contemporary times, religious Jews associate Amalek with violent antisemites,[91][96] nihilism and Jewish doubt in God.[95]

During the Purim festival, the Book of Esther is read in commemoration of the salvation of Jewish people from Haman, who plotted to kill all Jews in Persian Empire. It is customary for the audience to make noise and shout whenever "Haman" is mentioned, in order to desecrate his name, based on Exodus 17:14. It is also customary to recite Deuteronomy 25:17–18 on the Shabbat before Purim. This was because Haman was considered to be an Amalekite although this label is more likely to be symbolic rather than literal.[97][96][98] Some Iranophilic Jews interpreted Haman's Amalekite background as being anathema to both Jews and 'pure-blooded Iranians'.[69]

Christian traditions

Early Church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Cyprian consider the defeat of Amalek in Exodus 17:8–13 to be reminiscent of Jesus defeating the powers of the devil at the cross. Origen sees the battle as an allegory of the Law mysteriously invoking Christ, who recruits strong people (i.e. Christians) to defeat the demonic Strong Man, as described in Ephesians 6:12.[99]

John Gill believes that Amalek is a type of antichrist that 'raises his hand against the throne of God, his tabernacle and his saints'. He believes the phrase "from generation to generation" in Exodus 17:16 specifically refers to the Messianic Age, where Amalek and other antichristian states are exterminated by the Lamb.[100] Likewise, Charles Ellicott notes that the Amalekites were collectively called 'the sinners' in 1 Samuel 15:18, which was only used elsewhere for the Sodomites in Genesis 13:13.[101]

Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch state that the Amalekites were extinct by the second half of Hezekiah's reign.[102]

Professor Philip Jenkins notes that Christian extremists have historically labelled enemies such as Native Americans, Protestants, Catholics and Tutsis as Amalekites to justify their genocides.[103] Jews and victims of the Crusades were also called Amalekites. Because of this, modern Christian scholars have re-examined the Biblical narratives that inspired these atrocities using philology, literary analysis, archaeology and historical evidence.[40]

Islamic traditions

Islamic commentators believe the Amalekites were an ancient Arabian tribe. The monotheistic Ishmaelites evangelized to them in Mecca and later, supplanted their population. However, the paganism of the Amalekites and other Arabian tribes negatively influenced the Ishmaelites, including their approach to the Kaaba.[5]

Adam J. Silverstein observes that most of the medieval Muslim world ignored the Book of Esther or modified its details, despite their familiarity with the Persian Jewish community. This was caused by their attempt to reconcile the Biblical Esther with the Quranic Haman, who was the antagonist of the Exodus narrative, and Persian mythological historical traditions. Notable exceptions include Ibn Khaldūn, who affirmed the Amalekite origins of Haman and his antisemitic vendetta.[69]

Modern usage

Rabbis generally agree that Amalekites no longer exist, based on the argument that Sennacherib deported and mixed the nations, so it is no longer possible to determine who is an Amalekite.[104] Thus, the commandment to kill Amalekites is not practised by contemporary Jews.

Since the Holocaust, the phrase as it appears in Deuteronomy 25:17 is used as a call to witness. Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the Holocaust, features the phrase on a banner, and in letters between European Jews during the Holocaust, they plead with each other to "bear witness".[56]

In the Israel-Palestine conflict, some Israeli politicians and extremists have compared Palestinians to Amalek, stated that the Palestinians are the Amalekites.[105][106] or accuse Arabs of exhibiting "behavior" that is "typical" of Amalekites.[107] Yasser Arafat was called "the Amalek and Hitler of our generation" by 200 rabbis.[107] Many in the Gush Emunim movement see Arabs as the "Amalek of today".[108] One reason includes the belief that Amalek is any nation that prevents Jews from settling in the Land of Israel, which includes the Palestinians.[109] During the 2014 Gaza war, a leading yeshiva identified Palestinians as the descendants of the ancient Amalekites and Philistines.[109] Genealogically, Arabs are not related to Amalekites and prior to the Arab–Israeli conflict, some Jews associated Amalek with the Roman Empire and medieval Christians.[107]

Conversely, some ultra-Orthodox groups consider Zionists to be Amalekites due to Zionist antisemitism.[110]