…the most famous of all blood libel legends is that of the ritual murder of the child Hugh of Lincoln, England in 1255. The story was immortalized in a ballad so well-known in England and Scotland that is number 155 in the standard cannon of English and Scottish ballads compiled by Francis James Child in the 19th century. The best-know tale of ritual murder is the Prioress’s Tale, found in Chaucer’s 14th century classic work or early English fiction, Canterbury Tales.

Now why did Jews need blood in Christian opinion? This is a multiple-choice question:

1. Jews suffered from hemorrhoids as a punishment for killing Jesus and drinking blood was the best cure for hemorrhoids at the time.
2. All Jewish men menstruate and need a monthly blood transfusion.
3. Jewish men, when they’re circumcised, lose so much blood because of that surgical procedure that they need to drink Christian babies’ blood.
4. It’s the chief ingredient in matzah, and therefore prior to every Passover Jews would be requiring a large supply.
5. All of the above.

What do you think the correct answer is? Shockingly, it’s (5)—all of the above.

This is a very important lesson in anti-Semitism. You can say anything about the Jews and people will believe it. [Italics added]

Today, we are less likely to face mobs with pitchforks and torches. We are more likely to face car bombs, terror attacks, missiles, chemical weapons, atomic weapons and whatever the enemy can find that will annihilate the most people in the most efficient manner.

The myth is absolutely outside the range of reality. It is the product of an ancient rumor mill, a tale given life by people ignorant of the Jews and their beliefs. The story was never an accurate description of an actual event. But the murder of every Jew who has ever died or will ever die because of it is actual and that’s a terrible price to pay for a myth.

Now, in propagating this myth, the Saudi cleric and others like him may indeed be igniting a regional fire that will become a nuclear war – World War III.

The literal facts of history are totally changed, especially regarding Jewish existence in the Land of Israel, the beginnings of Christianity and Islam.

Jewish antiquities and ancient sites are destroyed wherever possible.

Even those few who might wish to live their lives in peace find their children radicalized in school and are pressured to support the ‘jihad’ or be labeled a traitor to Islam, with dire consequences.

Watch this brief video for a clear and very public example of indoctrination:  PA TV to kids: Christians and Jews are inferior, cowardly and despised

The second victims, and no less the primary targets of this propaganda, are the western populations, especially the young people. For the most part they either have no remembrance, knowledge of or education in the history of the Middle East, so they are easily radicalized. Many have been comfortable all their lives and are looking for a purpose or a cause to feel important. (We have seen the results of foreign intervention in Gaza, Israel, and now in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and others. Thousands have died and so far the result looks likely to be anarchy or a tyrannical government of another kind).

Ask every responsible economist in the world and they will tell you that the Israeli economic success would be greater without the huge drain placed on the national budget by defense expenditures-4.85 percent of GDP, equal to 11.6 percent of the state budget 3.  Many social issues in Israel would be at least partially resolved if the expense for defense could be reduced. In addition, as in other countries, R&D resources currently devoted to military needs would be added to the very successful industrial R&D enterprise in Israel.

In addition, ask every Israeli reservist who must interrupt his studies, career, and family life for a minimum of 30 days a year to serve in the reserves. This continues until age 40. Does he really want to go to war?

Do you really think this is the life the founders of the state envisioned for the next generations? They were trying to set up an agricultural lifestyle working the land, raising animals, growing crops. They wanted a militaristic society?

It’s understandable, perhaps, that it may be very difficult for Americans and Europeans to understand and identify with Israelis, even if they are sympathetic to the existential dilemma Israel faces. It’s hundreds of years since they began to build or rebuild their societies. Most of them no longer have a national draft. But at least some of them ought to remember what it was like to defend their land, society and culture during the 2 world wars and the cold war?

War at home? Abroad?

Since the Vietnam war, Americans have not had a draft. Though Americans have voluntarily served and died in wars, since the Civil War, with a few exceptions, during these wars US soil was not under attack and obviously not the whole continent. In general, Americans have not had to fear that the enemy is at their door or that their children are in physical danger.

Until 9/11 most Americans thought of war in the Middle East as far away, between foreign peoples who cut off the heads of their enemies or stoned women in public on a regular basis. However, 9/11 suddenly showed that a brutal force from that same Middle East could attack the homeland. Even though shock and emotion seared a new awareness into the psyche of most Americans and the western world, for many, terrifying and threatening as it was, it was not on every doorstep. Many families sent husbands and sons to hunt down that cruel enemy and the distant Middle East suddenly came closer. A war was once again on the American newscasts. The fear of terrorism was awakened and with it a realization that harm can invade their lives, perhaps on a plane, at a shopping center, a church or a political rally. Yet still, at home, they felt safe.

What do you think? Were the Americans then warmongers?

They carried the war to a far away enemy in order to prevent attacks on their country. Only the extreme left would deny the US the right of their attempt to catch the perpetrators and prevent another threatened attack.

If your answer is no, then Israel too is NO warmonger!

The enemy of Israel is within and without, near and not far. An attack can reasonably be expected to occur in our bedrooms or our living rooms as easily as on a bus or in a hotel or restaurant. In Israel, even since the beginning of the legal settlement of the land, there has been no sense of safety. Home, the children’s kindergarten, the office, the restaurant, the public bus, the synagogue, the school, the lunch room at the University, and even the roads and byways have been and will be scenes of brutal attacks on men, women, children, grandparents, and infants. No one is immune, there is no safe place. But there are those who would dismiss this and deny Israel the right to exist at all.

Does that give another nation, another state with NO stake in that argument the legal or moral right to attack from across national borders? From Syria? From Iraq? From Lebanon? From Egypt? or from IRAN? I can’t think of any law on any books that permits them to do so. They have NO dog in the fight. Their only excuse is the ancient Islamic and Nazi-induced anti-Jewish vitriol. Perhaps you have read of the Arab visits to Hitler? You don’t know anything about this collaboration? Then you have a serious hole in your knowledge of one of the direct causes of current events–Current events that could escalate into a nuclear world war in your time.

Yet amazingly, in Israel, on the surface, life goes on ‘normally’:

Peace? Even in a period of relative ‘peace’, missiles fall on homes, schools, fields and streets, frequently, without warning, day or night, weekday or Sabbath. This is the reality that every Israeli, liberal or conservative, lives with every day of our lives.

Israelis work hard, often long hours, study, socialize like everywhere else. They are indeed far more politically aware and far more involved in the day-to-day social and military situations arising, if only on a discussion level, than the average citizen in other countries. A subconscious alertness, dormant until a siren goes off, the news is interrupted, or a telephone call brings back reality with sudden brutal fear. Then the cell phone networks fail as everyone calls friends and family to reassure themselves that they weren’t injured and emergency personnel report for duty. Israel is a small country – it has happened more than once that when the emergency crews arrive, they find a loved one or friend injured or killed.

That’s everyday life in Israel. Yet in an international survey, it was reported that on the whole, Israelis are happier and more satisfied with their lives than in other countries. Maybe that’s partly because we are focused in spite of all, not on war, but on peace. And yes, even with our fathers, sons, brothers and sisters all serving in the army — on the ‘front’ of the front lines.

Do you still think Israelis are warmongers? Do we want war?

No! We do not! But we do want to survive and we will defend our right to do so, here, in this place and in this time.

New Paragraph

The ones who sought to alter by force the settlement envisioned in Resolution 181 were the Arabs who threatened bloodshed if the United Nations was to adopt the Resolution:

“The [British] Government of Palestine fear that strife in Palestine will be greatly intensified when the Mandate is terminated, and that the international status of the United Nations Commission will mean little or nothing to the Arabs in Palestine, to whom the killing of Jews now transcends all other considerations. Thus, the Commission will be faced with the problem of how to avert certain bloodshed on a very much wider scale than prevails at present. … The Arabs have made it quite clear and have told the Palestine government that they do not propose to co-operate or to assist the Commission, and that, far from it, they propose to attack and impede its work in every possible way. We have no reason to suppose that they do not mean what they say.” [italics by author]

Arabs’ intentions and deeds did not fare better after Resolution 181 was adopted:

“Taking into consideration that the Provisional Government of Israel has indicated its acceptance in principle of a prolongation of the truce in Palestine; that the States members of the Arab League have rejected successive appeals of the United Nations Mediator, and of the Security Council in its resolution 53 (1948) of 7 July 1948, for the prolongation of the truce in Palestine; and that there has consequently developed a renewal of hostilities in Palestine.”

The conclusion:

“Having constituted a Special Committee and instructed it to investigate all questions and issues relevant to the problem of Palestine, and to prepare proposals for the solution of the problem, and

Having received and examined the report of the Special Committee (document A/364). … Recommends to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future Government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union set out below; …” [italics by author].

In the late 1990s, more than 50 years after Resolution 181 was rejected by the Arab world, Arab leaders suddenly recommended to the General Assembly that UN Resolution 181 be resurrected as the basis for a peace agreement. There is no foundation for such a notion.

Resolution 181 was the last of a series of recommendations that had been drawn up over the years by the Mandator and by international commissions, plans designed to reach an historic compromise between Arabs and Jews in western Palestine. The first was in 1922 when Great Britain unilaterally partitioned Palestine. This did not satisfy the Arabs who wanted the entire country to be Arab. Resolution 181 followed such proposals as the Peel Commission (1937); the Woodhead Commission (1938); two 1946 proposals that championed a bi-national state; one proposed by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in April 1946 based on a single state with equal powers for Jews and Arabs; the Morrison-Grady Plan raised in July 1946 which recommended a federal state with two provinces – one Jewish, one Arab. Every scheme since 1922 was rejected by the Arab side, including decidedly pro-Arab ones because these plans recognized Jews as a nation and gave Jewish citizens of Mandate Palestine political representation.

Arabs Rejected the “Unbalanced” Partition Plan

The UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) uses the term “unbalanced”

in describing the reason for Arab rejectionism of Resolution 181. This description hardly fits reality. Seventy-seven percent of the landmass of the original Mandate for the Jews was excised in 1922 to create a fourth Arab state – Trans-Jordan (today Jordan).

In a statement by Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, the representative of the Jewish Agency for Palestine to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), he had that to say about fairness, balance, and justice:

“According to David Lloyd George, then British Prime Minister, the Balfour Declaration implied that the whole of Palestine, including Transjordan, should ultimately become a Jewish state. Transjordan had, nevertheless, been severed from Palestine in 1922 and had subsequently been set up as an Arab kingdom. Now a second Arab state was to be carved out of the remainder of Palestine, with the result that the Jewish National Home would represent less than one eighth of the territory originally set aside for it. Such a sacrifice should not be asked of the Jewish people.”

Referring to the Arab States established as independent countries since the First World War, he said:

“17,000,000 Arabs now occupied an area of 1,290,000 square miles, including all the principal Arab and Moslem centres, while Palestine, after the loss of Transjordan, was only 10,000 square miles; yet the majority plan proposed to reduce it by one half. UNSCOP proposed to eliminate Western Galilee from the Jewish State; that was an injustice and a grievous handicap to the development of the Jewish State.” [italics by author].

Arab’s Aggression Before and After the Adoption of Resolution 181

Following passage of Resolution 181 by the General Assembly, Arab countries took the dais to reiterate their absolute rejection of the recommendation and intention to render implementation of Resolution

181 a moot question by the use of force. These examples from the transcript of the General Assembly plenary meeting on November 29, 1947 speak for themselves:

“Mr. JAMALI (Iraq): … We believe that the decision which we have now taken … undermines peace, justice and democracy. In the name of my Government, I wish to state that it feels that this decision is antidemocratic, illegal, impractical and contrary to the Charter …

Therefore, in the name of my Government, I wish to put on record that Iraq does not recognize the validity of this decision, will reserve freedom of action towards its implementation, and holds those who were influential in passing it against the free conscience of mankind responsible for the consequences.”

“Amir. ARSLAN (Syria): … Gentlemen, the Charter is dead. But it did not die a natural death; it was murdered, and you all know who is guilty. My country will never recognize such a decision [Partition]. It will never agree to be responsible for it. Let the consequences be on the heads of others, not on ours.”

“H. R. H. Prince Seif El ISLAM ABDULLAH (Yemen): The Yemen delegation has stated previously that the partition plan is contrary to justice and to the Charter of the United Nations. Therefore, the Government of Yemen does not consider itself bound by such a decision … and will reserve its freedom of action towards the implementation of this decision.”

The Partition Plan was met not only by verbal rejection on the Arab side but also by concrete, bellicose steps to block its implementation and destroy the Jewish polity by force of arms, a goal the Arabs publicly declared even before Resolution 181 was brought to a vote.

Arabs not only rejected the compromise and took action to prevent establishment of a Jewish state but also blocked establishment of an Arab state under the partition plan not just before the Israel War of Independence, but also after the war when they themselves controlled the West Bank (1948-1967), rendering the recommendation ‘a still birth.’

The UN itself recognized that Resolution 181 had not been accepted by the Arab side, rendering it a dead issue: On January 29, 1948, the First Monthly Progress Report of the UN-appointed Palestine Commission charged with helping put Resolution 181 into effect was submitted to the Security Council (A/AC.21/7). Implementation of Resolution 181 hinged not only on the five member states appointed to represent the UN (Bolivia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Panama, Philippines) and Great Britain, but first and foremost on the participation of the two sides who were invited to appoint representatives. The Commission then reported:

“The invitation extended by the [181] resolution was promptly accepted by the Government of the United Kingdom and by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, both of which designated representatives to assist the commission. … As regards the Arab Higher Committee, the following telegraphic response was received by the Secretary-General on 19 January:

ARAB HIGHER COMMITTEE IS DETERMINED PRESIST [PERSIST] IN REJECTION PARTITION AND IN REFUSAL RECOGNIZE UN[O] RESOLUTION THIS RESPECT AND ANYTHING DERIVING THEREFROM [THERE FROM]. FOR THESE REASONS IT IS UNABLE [TO] ACCEPT [THE] INVITATION.”

The UN Palestine Commission’s February 16, 1948 report (A/AC.21/9) to the Security Council noted that Arab-led hostilities were an effort

“To prevent the implementation of the [General] Assembly’s plan of partition, and to thwart its objectives by threats and acts of violence, including armed incursions into Palestinian territory.”

On May 17, 1948 – after the invasion began, the Palestine Commission designed to implement 181 adjourned sine die [Latin: without determining a date] after the General Assembly appointed a United Nations Mediator in Palestine, which relieves the United Nations Palestine Commission from the further exercise of its responsibilities.

Some thought the Partition Plan could be revived, but by the end of the war, Resolution 181 had become a moot issue as realities on the ground made the establishment of an armistice-line (the “Green Line”)

– a temporary ceasefire line expected to be followed by peace treaties

– the most constructive path to solving the conflict.

A July 30, 1949 working paper of the UN Secretariat entitled The Future of Arab Palestine and the Question of Partition noted further that:

“The Arabs rejected the United Nations Partition Plan so that any comment of theirs did not specifically concern the status of the Arab section of Palestine under partition but rather rejected the scheme in its entirety.”

By the time armistice agreements were reached in 1949 between Israel and its immediate Arab neighbors (Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Trans-Jordan) with the assistance of UN Mediator Dr. Ralph Bunche, Resolution 181 had become irrelevant, and the armistice agreements addressed new realities created by the war. Over subsequent years, the UN simply abandoned the recommendations of Resolution 181, as its ideas were drained of all relevance by events. Moreover, the Arabs continued to reject 181 after the war when they themselves controlled the West Bank (1948-1967) which Jordan invaded in the course of the war and annexed illegally.

Attempts by Palestinians to ‘roll back the clock’ and resuscitate Resolution 181 more than six decades after they rejected it ‘as if nothing had happened’ are a baseless ploy designed to use Resolution

181 as leverage to bring about a greater Israeli withdrawal from parts of western Palestine and to gain a broader base from which to continue to attack an Israel with even less defendable borders. Both Palestinians and their Arab brethren in neighboring countries rendered the plan null and void by their own subsequent aggressive actions.

Professor Stone wrote about this ‘novelty of resurrection’ in 1981 when he analyzed a similar attempt by pro-Palestinian ‘experts’ at the UN to rewrite the history of the conflict (their writings were termed “Studies”). Stone called it “revival of the dead”

“To attempt to show … that Resolution 181(II) ‘remains’ in force in 1981 is thus an undertaking even more miraculous than would be the revival of the dead. It is an attempt to give life to an entity that the Arab states had themselves aborted before it came to maturity and birth. To propose that Resolution 181(II) can be treated as if it has binding force in 1981, [E.H., the year the book was written] for the benefit of the same Arab states, who by their aggression destroyed it ab initio, [In Latin: From the beginning] also violates ‘general principles of law,’ such as those requiring claimants to equity to come ‘with clean hands,’ and forbidding a party who has unlawfully repudiated a transaction from holding the other party to terms that suit the later expediencies of the repudiating party. [italics by author].

Resolution 181 had been tossed into the waste bin of history, along with the Partition Plans that preceded it.

Israel’s Independence is not a Result of a Partial Implementation of the Partition Plan

Resolution 181 has no legal ramifications – that is, Resolution 181 recognized the Jewish right to statehood, but its validity as a potentially legal and binding document was never consummated. Like the proposals that preceded it, Resolution 181’s validity hinged on acceptance by both parties of the General Assembly’s recommendation.

Cambridge Professor Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, Judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice, a renowned expert on international law, clarified that from a legal standpoint, the 1947 UN Partition Resolution had no legislative character to vest territorial rights in either Jews or Arabs. In a monograph relating to one of the most complex aspects of the territorial issue, the status of Jerusalem, Judge, Sir Lauterpacht wrote that any binding force the Partition Plan would have had to arise from the principle pacta sunt servanda, [In Latin: treaties must be honored – the first principle of international law] that is, from agreement of the parties at variance to the proposed plan. In the case of Israel, Judge, Sir Lauterpacht explains:

“The coming into existence of Israel does not depend legally upon the Resolution. The right of a State to exist flows from its factual existence-especially when that existence is pro­longed shows every sign of continuance and is recognized by the generality of nations.”

Reviewing Lauterpacht’s arguments, Professor Stone, a distinguished authority on the Law of Nations, added that Israel’s “legitimacy” or the “legal foundation” for its birth does not reside with the United Nations’ Partition Plan, which as a consequence of Arab actions became a dead issue. Professor Stone concluded:

“The State of Israel is thus not legally derived from the partition plan, but rests (as do most other states in the world) on assertion of independence by its people and government, on the vindication of that independence by arms against assault by other states, and on the establishment of orderly government within territory under its stable control.”

For the article including notes and map, please go to:

Myths and Facts – Resolution 181

So, though some changes were even voted on (in 1996, even voiding the part that denied Israel’s right to exist), the text of the legal charter was never changed. No matter how many times in the light of the cameras and presence of Prime Ministers, Presidents and the whole world, it is stated that they recognize Israel, nothing has changed and certainly no specific borders for an Israeli state in the territory of “Palestine” have ever been described or approved in the charter.

Palestine (Arabic: Filastin/Filas??n/Falas??n/Filis??n), officially declared as the State of Palestine (Arabic: Dawlat Filastin) is a state that was proclaimed in exile in Algiers on 15 November 1988, when the PLO’s National Council (PNC) adopted the unilateral Palestinian Declaration of Independence. At the time of the 1988 declaration, the PLO did not exercise control over any territory and its claimed territory remains under Israeli occupation. It claims the Palestinian territory and has designated Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine despite Israeli control. 3

2. Current Events

So, when Abbas comes to the UN waving a banner or showing a map of Palestine without the State of Israel in its place, it is clear that what it SEEMS to say is what it DOES say. He knows that many, perhaps a majority, just won’t believe he MEANS it. Sound familiar?

When the head of PLO holds this model and demands a PA state based on the 1967 borders, he is NOT saying ‘and forever limited to’ such borders. For him, it is just one step forward in negotiations. A: ‘stop settlements’. Israel stopped. B: ‘stop settlements AND 1967 borders. C: if Israel looks pressured and may give in to that, D: add the right of return. He knows that whether Israel agrees or doesn’t he gets the message out to Palestinian supporters and they will pressure their governments, rioting in the streets and universities to achieve these ends. But will Abbas (or the next PLO Chairman) accept an agreement then? NO, of course not. For then the next step is E. push back toward the 1948 armistice lines. All along use Arabs living outside of the Israel to make claims for return and ‘return’ of land (which quite possible was Jewish-owned prior to the riots during the Mandate).

3. Petition to UN

Making false or deceptive statements (lying, in western parlance) is a strategic tactic in war — whether physical or diplomatic. Blatantly used and condoned in the East, it is secretly used and universally condemned when exposed in the West. But it is widely used in normal foreign discourse and in positions of power by both government and civilians.

Think about it this way: Misleading the enemy in a time of war is justified by all cultures. The Arabs consider themselves in a constant state of war with Israel as a foreign entity in territory they consider theirs, so they can’t be faulted if the western citizens allow themselves to believe and act on statements made or even documents issued during negotiations and under duress employed by foreign powers to try to force compliance with their wishes.

In addition, if those Western leaders who should know better build their foreign policy decisions on such actions or information, it is either deliberate self-deceit or intentional deceit of their constituents. YOU need to know the truth.

Therefore, Palestinians can’t be blamed if the non-Arab, non-Islamic peoples choose to ignore or deny the existence of this generational state of war. And of course, it is understandable that the Palestinians call it a victory when people believe and base their own policies on PA statements made or even documents signed under duress that have no relationship to their real goal. After all, in most cases the truth is easily discovered if one wants to find it.

At the UN to from the documents submitted by Abu Abbas:

This application for membership is being submitted based on the Palestinian people’s natural, legal and historic rights and based on United Nations General Assembly resolution 181(II) of 29 November 1947 as well as the Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine of 15 November 1988 and the acknowledgment by the General Assembly of this Declaration in resolution 43/177 of 15 December 1988.4

It is notable that the letter gives such prominence to resolution 181, the 1947 “partition” resolution which recommended the partition of  Palestine without the consent of its indigenous people. 4

The Palestinian Authority is telling its people that peace with Israel is not a goal. Instead, the PA says that all of Israel is “Palestine,” and that no compromise is acceptable because this principle is “the only red line.” This message was expressed by the regular cartoonist, Muhammad Sabaaneh, in the official PA daily.

Published this week, his cartoon displayed a map of all of Israel (excluding the Golan Heights) and the PA areas, with the following text written across the map: 5

To date, no one protests the fact that, since the 1970s, Jewish schoolchildren in Israel are surrounded by perimeter fences, with armed guards at the schoolyard gates, as if their schools were the domiciles of Mafiosi.

Not one Arab village in Israel or the Territories has a perimeter fence around it. Guards are not required at Arabic shops, cafes, restaurants, movie theaters, wedding halls or schools – either in Israel or in the Territories. Palestinians also do not need armed guards to accompany every school trip, youth movement hike or campout. They are not targets of terrorism.

Countless Israelis in sensitive areas within the Green Line – not only in the Territories, but also in Jewish towns, villages and bedroom suburbs – are “ghettoized” behind high fences.

Many Israeli motorists avoid major arteries that pass through Arab areas of Israel, while Arab citizens and Palestinians from the Territories continue to enter Jewish cities and go about their business without peril. Israelis are told, in effect, to disguise themselves when traveling abroad – not to speak Hebrew in public and not to wear garments that reveal their Jewish-Israeli origins. Even Israel’s national airline – El Al – has been forced to remove its logo from the tails of its aircraft at certain airports, out of concern for the safety of its passengers. This followed several attempts to down Israeli civilian aircraft with missiles. On the other hand, Arabs who frequent Jewish cities and towns in Israel wear their traditional Arab headgear without fear of being attacked or harassed.

Bob, all this begs the question: Who are the victims and who are the victimizers? Who are the ones being harassed and humiliated? Palestinian Arabs or Israelis?