A blog dedicated to investigating events as they occur in Judea and Samaria, in Israel and in the world, and as they relate to global powers and/or to the Israeli government, public figures, etc. It is dedicated to uncovering the truth behind the headlines; and in so doing, it strives to do its part in saving Judea and Samaria, and by extension, Israel and the Jewish People, from utter destruction at the hands of its many external and internal enemies.
A few weeks ago, the Associated Press reported that newly released tapes from US president Lyndon Johnson's White House office showed LBJ's "personal and often emotional connection to Israel ." The news agency pointed out that during the Johnson presidency (1963-1969), "the United States became Israel 's chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier."
But the news report does little to reveal the full historical extent of Johnson's actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Most students of the Arab-Israeli conflict can identify Johnson as the president during the 1967 war. But few know about LBJ's actions to rescue hundreds of endangered Jews during the Holocaust - actions that could have thrown him out of Congress and into jail. Indeed, the title of "Righteous Gentile" is certainly appropriate in the case of the Texan, whose centennial year is being commemorated this year.
Appropriately enough, the annual Jerusalem Conference announced this week that it will honor Johnson in February 2009
Historians have revealed that Johnson, while serving as a young congressman in 1938 and 1939, arranged for visas to be supplied to Jews in Warsaw , and oversaw the apparently illegal immigration of hundreds of Jews through the port of Galveston , Texas .
A key resource for uncovering LBJ's pro-Jewish activity is the unpublished 1989 doctoral thesis by University of Texas student Louis Gomolak, "Prologue: LBJ's Foreign Affairs Background, 1908-1948." Johnson's activities were confirmed by other historians in interviews with his wife, family members and political associates.
Research into Johnson's personal history indicates that he inherited his concern for the Jewish people from his family. His aunt Jessie Johnson Hatcher, a major influence on LBJ, was a member of the Zionist Organization of America. According to Gomolak, Aunt Jessie had nurtured LBJ's commitment to befriending Jews for 50 years. As a young boy, Lyndon watched his politically active grandfather "Big Sam" and father "Little Sam" seek clemency for Leo Frank, the Jewish victim of a blood libel in Atlanta . Frank was lynched by a mob in 1915, and the Ku Klux Klan in Texas threatened to kill the Johnsons. The Johnsons later told friends that Lyndon's family hid in their cellar while his father and uncles stood guard with shotguns on their porch in case of KKK attacks. Johnson's speechwriter later stated, "Johnson often cited Leo Frank's lynching as the source of his opposition to both anti-Semitism and isolationism."
Already in 1934 - four years before Chamberlain's Munich sellout to Hitler - Johnson was keenly alert to the dangers of Nazism and presented a book of essays, Nazism: An Assault on Civilization, to the 21-year-old woman he was courting, Claudia Taylor - later known as "Lady Bird" Johnson. It was an incredible engagement present.
FIVE DAYS after taking office in 1937, LBJ broke with the "Dixiecrats" and supported an immigration bill that would naturalize illegal aliens, mostly Jews from Lithuania and Poland . In 1938, Johnson was told of a young Austrian Jewish musician who was about to be deported from the United States . With an element of subterfuge, LBJ sent him to the US Consulate in Havana to obtain a residency permit. Erich Leinsdorf, the world famous musician and conductor, credited LBJ for saving his live.
That same year, LBJ warned a Jewish friend, Jim Novy, that European Jews faced annihilation. "Get as many Jewish people as possible out [of Germany and Poland ]," were Johnson's instructions. Somehow, Johnson provided him with a pile of signed immigration papers that were used to get 42 Jews out of Warsaw .
But that wasn't enough. According to historian James M. Smallwood, Congressman Johnson used legal and sometimes illegal methods to smuggle "hundreds of Jews into Texas , using Galveston as the entry port. Enough money could buy false passports and fake visas in Cuba , Mexico and other Latin American countries.... Johnson smuggled boatloads and planeloads of Jews into Texas . He hid them in the Texas National Youth Administration... Johnson saved at least four or five hundred Jews, possibly more."
During World War II Johnson joined Novy at a small Austin gathering to sell $65,000 in war bonds. According to Gomolak, Novy and Johnson then raised a very "substantial sum for arms for Jewish underground fighters in Palestine ." One source cited by the historian reports that "Novy and Johnson had been secretly shipping heavy crates labeled 'Texas Grapefruit' - but containing arms - to Jewish underground 'freedom fighters' in Palestine."
ON JUNE 4, 1945, Johnson visited Dachau . According to Smallwood, Lady Bird later recalled that when her husband returned home, "he was still shaken, stunned, terrorized and bursting with an overpowering revulsion and incredulous horror at what he had seen."
A decade later while serving in the Senate, Johnson blocked the Eisenhower administration's attempts to apply sanctions against Israel following the 1956 Sinai Campaign. "The indefatigable Johnson had never ceased pressure on the administration," wrote I.L. "Si" Kenen, the head of AIPAC at the time.
As Senate majority leader, Johnson consistently blocked the anti-Israel initiatives of his fellow Democrat, William Fulbright, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Among Johnson's closest advisers during this period were several strong pro-Israel advocates, including Benjamin Cohen (who 30 years earlier was the liaison between Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis and Chaim Weizmann) and Abe Fortas, the legendary Washington "insider."
Johnson's concern for the Jewish people continued through his presidency. Soon after taking office in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Johnson told an Israeli diplomat, "You have lost a very great friend, but you have found a better one."
Just one month after succeeding Kennedy, LBJ attended the December 1963 dedication of the Agudas Achim Synagogue in Austin . Novy opened the ceremony by saying to Johnson, "We can't thank him enough for all those Jews he got out of Germany during the days of Hitler."
Lady Bird would later describe the day, according to Gomolak: "Person after person plucked at my sleeve and said, 'I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for him. He helped me get out.'" Lady Bird elaborated, "Jews had been woven into the warp and woof of all [Lyndon's] years."
THE PRELUDE to the 1967 war was a terrifying period for Israel , with the US State Department led by the historically unfriendly Dean Rusk urging an evenhanded policy despite Arab threats and acts of aggression. Johnson held no such illusions. After the war he placed the blame firmly on Egypt : "If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision [by Egypt ] that the Strait of Tiran would be closed [to Israeli ships and Israeli-bound cargo]."
Kennedy was the first president to approve the sale of defensive US weapons to Israel , specifically Hawk anti-aircraft missiles. But Johnson approved tanks and fighter jets, all vital after the 1967 war when France imposed a freeze on sales to Israel . Yehuda Avner recently described on these pages prime minister Levi Eshkol's successful appeal for these weapons on a visit to the LBJ ranch.
Israel won the 1967 war, and Johnson worked to make sure it also won the peace. "I sure as hell want to be careful and not run out on little Israel," Johnson said in a March 1968 conversation with his ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg, according to White House tapes recently released.
Soon after the 1967 war, Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin asked Johnson at the Glassboro Summit why the US supported Israel when there were 80 million Arabs and only three million Israelis. "Because it is right," responded the straight-shooting Texan.
The crafting of UN Resolution 242 in November 1967 was done under Johnson's scrutiny. The call for "secure and recognized boundaries" was critical. The American and British drafters of the resolution opposed Israel returning all the territories captured in the war. In September 1968, Johnson explained, "We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders. Some such lines must be agreed to by the neighbors involved."
Goldberg later noted, "Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem , and this omission was deliberate." This historic diplomacy was conducted under Johnson's stewardship, as Goldberg related in oral history to the Johnson Library. "I must say for Johnson," Goldberg stated. "He gave me great personal support."
Robert David Johnson, a professor of history at Brooklyn College , recently wrote in The New York Sun, "Johnson's policies stemmed more from personal concerns - his friendship with leading Zionists, his belief that America had a moral obligation to bolster Israeli security and his conception of Israel as a frontier land much like his home state of Texas . His personal concerns led him to intervene when he felt that the State or Defense departments had insufficiently appreciated Israel 's diplomatic or military needs."
President Johnson firmly pointed American policy in a pro-Israel direction. In a historical context, the American emergency airlift to Israel in 1973, the constant diplomatic support, the economic and military assistance and the strategic bonds between the two countries can all be credited to the seeds planted by LBJ.
The writer served as deputy chief of mission of the Israeli Embassy in Washington . Today, an international consultant, he blogs at www.lennybendavid.com.
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Oct. 27, 2008 DAN IZENBERG, TOVAH LAZAROFF and jpost.com staff , THE JERUSALEM POST
A settler who apparently made comments calling to kill soldiers distributed an apology letter Monday, saying he was "in a stormy mood" when he made the comments on Sunday.
"I didn't speak generally against IDF soldiers," said Kiryat Arba resident Shmuel Ben Yishai in the letter, having been quoted in the media as saying, "God damn the IDF forces. We wish they would be destroyed by their enemies, that all of them would be Gilad Schalit, that they would all be killed and slaughtered, because that's what they deserve."
In Ben Yishai's letter, he apologized for his words, but said the he "hopes that the Holy One, blessed be he, will avenge those who are involved in evacuation [of settlements]"
The Attorney-General's Office on Sunday, meanwhile, ordered a criminal investigation into the extremist settlers' comments.
The settlers spoke to Army Radio in the aftermath of an IDF evacuation, shortly after midnight, of a small unauthorized outpost tucked into a back corner of the West Bank town of Kiryat Arba.
"This is an army that protects Hamas and Palestine. It is the army that established Palestine, the army that hands over weapons to Palestine, that sacrifices Jewish blood to establish Palestine, and this is what ought to happen," one unnamed settler said.
A second settler said, "We ought to carry out an attack of revenge against the IDF."
Outraged by the comments, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for the settlers who made these comments to be punished with the full severity of the law.
"Whoever speaks out against IDF soldiers belongs in jail and in judicial proceedings. We will show no tolerance toward such expressions and actions," said Olmert.
"We are sick of this verbal violence, which either leads to or affects other violence. We know this from the past. In no way will I allow this to continue in the future, and we will see to it that it stops forthwith."
He added that he had instructed Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter to act immediately to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The IDF also weighed in on the matter and asked Shai Nitzan, who heads the Special Tasks Division of the State Attorney's Office, to press charges.
An IDF officer said that the army viewed the comments gravely and was "concerned that without legal action, violence and incitement will continue."
Shortly afterward, Nitzan ordered the police to open a criminal investigation against those settlers who spoke out, on suspicion of incitement to violence.
This is a very serious matter, said Raz Nazri, a senior aide to Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz, in a letter he wrote to Meretz MK Avshalom Vilan.
These statements, Nazri wrote, "crossed a red line and could not be considered to be protected by the principle of freedom of expression, even if this protection is extremely broad."
Nazri told Vilan these statements "were exceptional in their gravity, and therefore we decided to deviate from our usual policy and order police to open a criminal investigation against those who made them."
Judea and Samaria Police spokesman Ch.-Supt. Danny Poleg told The Jerusalem Post, "It's too early to talk about arrests. The journalists who interviewed the settlers know who the suspects are, but they enjoy journalistic immunity. The comments are on the Internet, and the question of who made them is not a state secret. It's a matter of time before we apprehend the right person."
While there were some angry settlers in Hebron and Kiryat Arba who agreed with the statements, the settler leadership was quick to denounce them.
Those who spoke on the radio are "hooligans who do not represent Kiryat Arba and the settlements in Judea and Samaria," said Dani Dayan, who heads the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. "We condemn them without reservation."
But, he said, there was also "no justification" for the way the army entered two family homes located at the outpost and destroyed them in the middle of the night.
Orit Struck, a spokeswoman for the Hebron Jewish community, attacked the media and the politicians for focusing too much on the comments of a few isolated individuals, when the real crime that occurred was the destruction of the two homes.
"The real serious action is what the IDF did, and not the statement of some person who does not represent anyone," said Struck.
But a number of parliamentarians from the Left disagreed.
"The extreme Right's horrifying statements against the IDF testify to [their] loss of any connection with reality and the state," said MK Ophir Paz-Pines (Labor).
"We will not allow the extreme Right to dictate reality for the entire nation. These threats will not deter us from acting with determination against all illegal outposts," he said.
"The outposts on the hills of Judea and Samaria are creating a poisonous hotbed for groups of dangerous and uninhibited [people] who are trying to obliterate all human quality from the Jewish people in the State of Israel," MK Rabbi Michael Melchior (Labor) added.
"I support the security forces and call for them to continue their struggle against this wild malignancy sprouting in the hills."
Yaakov Katz, Yaakov Lappin and Herb Keinon contributed to this report.
But of course no investigations... We are all pals here guys... LOL
The MOTHER of all investigations must be enacted into law if anyone really wants to solve at least some of the things that have been done against our people since Oslo and even before that.
I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee... ואברכה מברכיך ומקללך אאר ונברכו בך כל משפחת האדמה
Am Yisrael wants the Temple rebuilt!
A survey conducted by the Panels Insitute revealed that 64 % of the Israeli public , and half of secular Israelis, want the Temple rebuilt. 97% of respondents know that the Temple was destroyed on Tisha B'Av ( Ninth of Av).
The survey's second question queried the public’s desire to rebuild the Temple. Sixty-four percent responded favorably and 36 percent said no. Analysis of the answers revealed that not only hareidi-religious and other religious Jews want to rebuild the Temple, (100 percent and 97 percent respectively), but also the traditional public (91 percent) and many secular Jews (47 percent) do as well.
Just a reminder to our many enemies, specially 'you know who' (below ), from Isaiah the Prophet:
Isaiah 49:24-26
"Can prey be taken back from a strong one; can the righteous captive escape?
But thus said Hashem: Even the captive of the strong can be taken back, and the prey of the mighty can escape; I, Myself, will take up your cause, and I, MYSELF, WILL SAVE YOUR CHILDREN.
And I will feed your oppressors their own flesh, and as with sweet wine shall they become drunk; then all flesh shall know that I am Hashem, your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Israel."
My favorite blogs and websites ( in alphabetical order)
It is forbidden to remain silent in matters of life and death!
Always remember: first thoughts, then words....so actions can follow.
"Sof Maaseh, B'Machshavah Techilah"
סוף מעשה, במחשבה תחילה
("The final outcome has been conceived of at the outset")
Words of wisdom: what to do to save lives and preserve freedom of the Jewish People in Israel:
"When the people fear the government, it is tyranny...when government fears the people, it is liberty."
Variously attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin.
... Coming from a traditionally very passive and peaceful sector, United Torah Judaism:
"There was no reason for [the mother] to be in jail... Now we all understand that these things can be stopped by burning garbage and ripping out traffic lights”
MK Meir Porush, UTJ - about the riots in Jerusalem
A word of wisdom...coming from what was once the Land of the Free...
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."
Samuel Adams, American Revolutionary
Very appropriate quote , although more than a century old.
"There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech,
but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press."
--Mark Twain
... And more truths about truth:
"A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.
To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers.... The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing.
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth."
-- Aldous Huxley - (1894-1963) Author - Source: forward to Brave New World, 1946 edition.
"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic."Dresden James.
We live in times of unprecedented dangers, therefore,
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." Edmund Burke
"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing, because he could only do a little."
Edmund Burke
PICTORIAL REVIEW OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN GUSH KATIF
Here below, you will be able to see for yourselves what REALLY happened during the Gush Katif expulsion; how the GOOD JEWS of ISRAEL were BETRAYED by their so-called leaders.
Link provided by Barry Chamish.
Now you understand whom we are dealing with in this country: TRAITORS. They pretend to have the nation's best interests at heart, but this is all a mirage, a lie; either they are self-serving, or THEY WORK FOR THE ENEMY, and they cannot be trusted.
Only TRUE and FAITHFUL LEADERSHIP will get us out of this morass; AND G-D'S INFINITE MERCY, B"H.
We are waiting for Mashiach to come and rescue us; meanwhile, we do what we can to HELP THE GEULAH.
Gush Katif Betrayal, "MERAGLIM 1"
Gush Katif Betrayal, "MERAGLIM 2"
Gush Katif Betrayal, "MERAGLIM 3"
Gush Katif Betrayal, "MERAGLIM 4"
QUOTES BY THE ENEMY, AND ABOUT THE ENEMY'S TACTICS
Here below are quotes related to the enemy's nature, tactics and philosophy.
Always remember: LEARN FROM YOUR ENEMY, EMULATE HIM, but for the FORCES OF GOOD!
Whenever he does A, do A, in reverse.
He does B, do B, in reverse.
We might not have his financial resources or capabilities, but we have a much greater ally: HASHEM.
Remember David and Goliath. We are David, and with God's help, we can defeat Goliath. All we have to do is UNMASK THE EVIL GIANT, UNMASK HIS TACTICS, UNDERSTAND HIS DECEPTIONS, AND EXPOSE THEM TO THE BRIGHT LIGHT OF DAY.
AND PRAY TO GOD FOR HELP.
AND ALWAYS, ONLY STRIVE TO DO GOOD,
SO THAT WE CAN BE A FORCE OF GOOD AGAINST THESE MESSENGERS OF DARKNESS.
"PROPAGANDA CANNOT TAKE TIME OFF"
"Propaganda cannot take time off"
... one of the key rules ofmodern disinformation, which is that the required message must be repeated very frequently if it is to pass...
Serge Tchakhotine, author of "Le Viol des Foules par la Propagande Politique", 1939
THE STATE IS THE ENEMY!
"You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the ... public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security.
This is the political logic which remains behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened."
Daniele Ganser, " NATO'S Secret Army, Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe "
OBAMA THE MUSLIM
THE DARK SIDE OF THE U.S.A.: AS IN SERBIA, SO IN YESHA...
... in 1998, the US State Department and intelligence agencies decided to use the Kosovo Liberation Army to get rid of Slobodan Miloševic. "The US agenda was clear. When the time was right they were going to use the KLA to provide the solution to the political problem" – the "problem" being, as Marshall explains earlier, Miloševic’s continued political survival. This meant supporting the KLA’s terrorist secessionism, and later fighting a war against Yugoslavia on its side. Marshall quotes Mark Kirk, a US naval intelligence officer, saying that, "Eventually we opened up a huge operation against Miloševic, both secret and open." The secret part of the operation involved not only things like stuffing the various observer missions which were sent into Kosovo with officers from the British and American intelligence services, but also – crucially – giving military, technical, financial, logistical and political support to the KLA, which, as Marshall himself admits, "smuggled drugs, ran prostitution rackets and murdered civilians." "Bags of money had been brought in for years.... Organisations controlled by George Soros also played a crucial role, as they were later to do, in 2003–4, in Georgia.... The so-called "democrats" were, in reality, nothing but foreign agents."
Tim Marshall, Sky TV
MAKE SURE TO WATCH THE PPS"Will there soon be an anti-Jewish genocide in Israel?"
I am a Jew living in the Land of Judea (Eretz Yehuda), which was given to us, the Jewish people, by G-D Himself. I love this place very much; I will do my best to develop it, cherish it, protect it, turn it into the paradise it was always meant to be - and defend it against any and all enemies of Am Yisrael.
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