Worse Than Watergate!

It has often been said , not without justification , than the Watergate cover-up was worse than the original crime .
If you commit a crime ( I haven ’ t , of course ! )
it ’ s always best to ‘ fess up .
Joe Biden may discover that before the year is out .
The Chinese most certainly are .
The first cracks have already stared to appear in the naturally occurring virus theory .
Only this weekend those nice people at the Gatestone Institute in New York City have openly questioned it .
The credibility of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ line .
Built on one of the grossest deceptions in the history of mankind and a creature of the Abwehr , people should have stopped taking it seriously years ago .
Even sinophile organisations like the Cabinet Office , which wants to replace the special relationship with America with a client relationship with Peking , must be having second thoughts .
Covid-19 ( I ’ m going with the flow and using lower case ) is a bio-weapon , pure and simple , developed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology , China ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only questions are how did it get out , who was the intended target and were the ChiComs seriously going to use it ?
I ’ ve already indicated my view that this was an unintended release .
Given that it ’ s primarily an economic disruptor , not a killer , I simply can not conceive of why Peking would want to shaft their own economy .
The Communist Party can only get away with running an autocratic one-party state if it delivers prosperity and strength , and the latter is to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Since we passed peak population growth in the late 1960s concern about population growth could not rationally lead a sane government to conclude that it needed to cull its own population .
The rate of population growth is in fact declining steadily .
Planetary population reached one billion around 1804 , two billion around 1930 , three billion around 1960 and four billion around 1974 .
Thus the fourth billion only took around half the time of the third .
We ’ re now at just over 7,750,000 people but the yearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1 % .
Technological improvements , including agricultural technology , and increasing urbanisation mean that we can cope with the increase , indeed we are coping .
Some countries are coping better than others , but that ’ s because they have inefficient systems of government and haven ’ t grasped the Laffer Curve .
By the second half of this century at the latest we should have commenced the permanent settlement of space , starting with the Moon .
There ’ s simply no way that Britain or America could have organised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our intelligence agencies are too heavily compromised by the DVD .
Neither country has a properly functioning intelligence community .
No , this was clearly an accidental release .
Who was the intended target ?
If the facts change I change my opinion – I ’ m not a liberal .
The last week has seen some interesting casualties , in Iran .
It looks to me as though we had a bunch of Iranian intelligence officers visiting Wuhan and I don ’ t think they were there because they liked bat soup @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wuhan acquiring some Covid-19 and got caught up in the release .
It ’ s even just possible that the release was linked in some way to the transfer , which would have been a critical stage in Iranian acquisition of a biological WMD capability ( Iran already has nukes of course ) .
Either way I don ’ t think it ’ s a coincidence that we have senior Iranian intelligence officers and other regime figures coming down with a touch of Coronavirus .
Assuming that the Iranians were arming themselves with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ target in mind – Israel .
I ’ m pretty sure they weren ’ t intending to whack the Ethiopians .
In my opinion this wasn ’ t just a Chinese own goal , but an Iranian .
If they ever played each other at soccer the match would make hilarious watching .
Not all Chinese scientists are mad .
Some sensible Chinese scientists , who are trying to limit the death toll and probably wish they could give Xi Jinping a dose , have concluded that the virus has mutated .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the two strains ‘ L ’ and ‘ S ’ , but in order to cause confusion I ’ m going to call them Covid-19a and b .
It looks as though the first , more lethal strain ( ‘ a ’ ) has a fatality rate of about 2.5 % .
The ‘ b ’ strain appears to be rather less lethal , with a fatality rate of about 1 % .
This would explain the differential casualty rates between Hubei Province , the rest of China and the West .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flu , but it ’ s a lot better than Spanish Flu or SARS , which also looks like a bio-weapon .
Covid-19b is the bio-weapon you want , if you want to get whacked by a bio-weapon that is .
No , is the short answer .
A couple of thousand dead Chinese and a couple of hundred dead Italians don ’ t add up to a pandemic , however sad it might be for the individuals concerned and their families .
The media keep banging on about ‘ global ’ infection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mean s Chinese infection and death rates .
The overwhelming majority of cases have been in the country which was crazy enough , and malicious enough , to create the weapon in the first place , that is to say the People ’ s Republic of China .
( It may not be a people ’ s republic for much longer of course , indeed at this rate they ’ ll probably bring back the Emperor ! )
The British media announced the second death here as though it was a great tragedy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was in Milton Keynes , no offense intended .
The death toll so far is about average for Nottingham on a Saturday night , indeed there have been more murders since the outbreak began than deaths from Covid-19 .
Since the Johnson government is committed , like its predecessors , to keeping the murder rate high by having soft sentences , that ’ s likely to remain the case , even with the Cabinet Office doing its best to drive up the Coronavirus death toll by importing more infected people from China and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more success in Italy . )
Sadly the government ’ s plan to encourage the Cabinet Secretary take a holiday in northern Italy or book a cruise on Princess Cruises has yet to come to fruition .
Princess Cruises are of course being encouraged to infect as many passengers as possible by keeping the air-con going .
If they ’ re wondering why Grand Princess is being kept offshore it ’ s because someone in Washington has finally worked out that Covid-19 is airborne .
With respect , the President ’ s instincts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t trust CDC , not least since they have been suppressing the sordid truth about Spanish Flu for over 15 years .
Aside from cleaning out a few supermarkets of their bog roll , suggesting that some people have confused Coronavirus with cholera , there hasn ’ t been any panic in Britain .
I spent today on the wonderful Mid-Hants Railway in Hampshire , which runs between Alresford and Alton .
Nobody was wearing masks and everybody was enjoying themselves , especially a cute cockerpoo named Stanley .
Driving to Alresford @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hampshire countryside , listening to John Rutter ’ s magnificent setting of the Lord ’ s Prayer on Classic FM , on my way to spend a day behind steam engines , I was reminded of what a wonderful country this is .
Britain is now at peace , after 47 years of disastrous and divisive EU membership .
We ’ re still on our feet , just about , despite all that various half-baked European tyrants and maniacs , from Louis XIV , Napoleon , the Kaiser and Adolf Hitler to Michel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us .
This weekend has seen a very special visitor on the Mid-Hants , of course : Flying Scotsman , the world ’ s most famous steam locomotive .
She ’ s looking in tip-top condition , even with those nasty German-style smoke deflectors .
Sadly she ’ s not allowed to 100 mph on the Mid-Hants , which officially is a light railroad with a speed limit of 25 mph .
( Ideally heritage railroads in Britain should be allowed to establish themselves through private Acts of Parliament , which would allow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the nature of the line and the state of the track and not have themselves fettered by a diktat from Whitehall , although 100 mph on the Mid-Hants would be pushing it ! )
Speaking of diktats from Whitehall all carriages on steam railroads in Britain have to carry warning signs above the windows ordering you not to open them whilst the train is in motion .
This is all because a couple of passengers on steam charters , lacking route knowledge , have stuck their heads out of windows at inopportune @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it can be upsetting for some passengers , especially the non-British ones , to have to step over a headless corpse on their way to the buffet car , but why spoil everybody else ’ s fun ?
Steam railroads are actually very safe , and , like the Mid-Hants , very well run .
The Democratic Party nomination is now a two-horse race , or , more accurately , a race between two old nags .
No offense , but I wouldn ’ t enter either in the 3.30 at Newmarket .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t have the numbers to win in the first round and that the super-delegates will swing it to Joe Biden in the second .
Joe Biden faces five fundamental problems , it seems to be , each enough to sink him come November : ( 1 ) His age .
He ’ s not actually that much older than President Trump .
The problem is that he looks at least 10 years older and electorates tend to think about how a President is going to perform at the end of his or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beginning .
Moreover he ’ s already starting to show signs of losing it .
As a Democrat he wouldn ’ t have that many marbles to begin with , no offense intended .
He doesn ’ t want to be losing any now .
( 2 ) The Obama birthplace cover-up .
Remember the advice I gave about doing a DNA test on ‘ von ’ Obama ’ s alleged paternal grandmother was given to the DIA as well as the CIA .
That means the Pentagon have got it , indeed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , because the subject came up , behind closed doors , with an armed guard on them .
As Vice-President , Joe Biden must have known that Obama wasn ’ t a citizen .
I know Joe ’ s a former senator but he can ’ t have been that stupid .
( 3 ) Burisma .
The Republicans are bound to home in on the appointment of Hunter Biden and ask how well he speaks Ukrainian .
The whole Ukraine thing is a mess for Biden , and he knows it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the liberal littoral the American electorate just doesn ’ t go in for baby-killing .
Joe Biden ’ s plan to kill more babies isn ’ t likely to play well in the Mid-West .
Roe v. Wade is about to sink without trace in the Supreme Court , whatever Chuck Schumer may say , not because the majority are political , but because it ’ s bad law .
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson didn ’ t believe in abortion and giving women the right to terminate the lives of their unborn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the minds of the Founding Fathers .
If there had been any Founding Mothers it wouldn ’ t have been on their minds either .
Come November abortion is likely to be a hot-button issue .
The Democrats may find that it ’ s about as popular as Coronavirus .
It doesn ’ t matter how many times feminists assert that only one life is involved in the decision to abort a foetus .
They ’ re wrong .
Women get to bear children , guys get to take the trash out .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ is .
Men and women are equal , but we ’ re not the same , and ( 5 ) Gun control .
Democrats expect to be protected by armed security , but they want to take away your guns .
Of course that means that the occasional unhinged maniac is going to acquire a gun and shoot people , but if you ’ ve got a gun you can shoot him .
Since the world is largely run by unhinged maniacs ( have you ever met anyone from the Cabinet Office ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ complaining about what an unhinged maniac might do doesn ’ t actually cut that much ice with Joe and Jill public .
I think the President will win by a landslide .
Speaking of landslides Rebecca Long-Bailey is about to get buried in one .
Labour ’ s long-drawn out leadership contest is going Sir Keir Starmer ’ s way , big time .
He ’ s going to find winning the next General Election a whole lot harder , however , even with Cabinet Office backing .
It ’ s not that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Keir doesn ’ t believe in democracy and thinks that officials should run the country .
He would prefer European officials to do the job , of course , but if he can ’ t have the country run from Brussels he ’ d rather have it run from Whitehall than Number 10 , no offense intended .
Recent Reading : Sailors On The Rocks ( Peter C. Smith , 2015 ) This book is all about Royal Navy shipwrecks , of which there have been quite a few .
In fairness to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shipwrecks , almost by definition , are taken in daylight , usually in calm weather .
People then tend to ask ‘ how could they have missed that rock etc.
’ As Peter Smith explains , however , most shipwrecks take place at night , usually in foul weather .
The most famous recent shipwreck , that of the DDG HMS Nottingham , on Wolf Rock off the coast of Lord Howe Island , in 2002 , raised a few eyebrows at the time .
How could a ship with every modern navigation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turns out that due to MOD cheeseparing the Nottingham did not in fact have every conceivable modern navaid .
I was surprised to learn , for example , that she was still using paper charts and apparently wasn ’ t even fitted with GPS .
Peter Smith , a noted naval historian with sensible views about global warming , is quite fair about the incident .
Leaving aside the decision to hit the rock , the officers and crew did just about everything right that night .
Damage control was excellent and no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , although not so funny for her skipper and navigator , was the running aground of the old ‘ S ’ class destroyer HMS Sturdy off the Scottish coast .
What ’ s so funny about that , I hear you ask ?
The skipper thought they had hit Northern Ireland !
That ’ s what ’ s referred to in the trade as a dead-reckoning error .
Smith offers fresh insights on the famous incident involving HMS Effingham in Norway in 1940 .
Effingham was one of the fine Hawkins class of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after the First World War .
Graceful and powerful , they were the first modern heavy cruisers .
Somewhat long in the tooth by 1940 however , Effingham had been rebuilt as a light cruiser using 6 ” guns let over from the conversion of some of the similar vintage C class cruisers into anti-aircraft cruisers .
Part of the hastily assembled Norway operation , Effingham ’ s skipper decided to take the inshore approach to Bodo , thinking that not even the wily Hun would expect it .
That ’ s because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ invasion for months if not years and had charts in German !
Poor old Effingham ’ s charts were in Norwegian !
Even that would have been fine had any of her officers been fluent in Norwegian , or had the Royal Norwegian Navy been invited to send someone along .
It rather looks as though the navigating officer misunderstood the Norwegian for ‘ watch out , there ’ s a bloody great rock in the middle of this channel !
’ The traditional explanation – that the navigator simply pencilled over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be true .
Next time the Hun invades Norway we should ship some decent Norwegian beer and invite the Norwegian Navy along for the party .
It ’ s a very well researched and written piece of naval history and I recommend it .
I sincerely hope this hilarious new intel comedy is shown Stateside .
Starring David Schwimmer ( Ross in Friends ) as an NSA officer assigned to GCHQ , it sends up the FBI , the NSA and GCHQ , in just about equal measure .
Schwimmer ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asshole ( sorry , that should read ‘ jerk ’ , I keep forgetting that this is a family website ) who rubs his new boss up the wrong way .
This is one of the few weaknesses in the plot – as an asshole , sorry ‘ jerk ’ , Jerry really ought to have been cast as CIA , no offense intended .
The NSA are very nice people and not at all obsessed with sex .
The GCHQ characters are a hoot and seem to have come straight from central @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feeling that creator Nick Mohammed must have had some inside help .
I don ’ t want to spoil the plot too much , but it turns out that Meade were anxious to offload Jerry and the FBI come calling .
Something to do with helping out the Republican candidate in 2016 .
The FBI agent , as one would expect , had been sleeping with Jerry ’ s wife .
Jerry then pretends to be gay and goes through a gay marriage to avoid extradition .
It ’ s very watchable and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .

It has often been said, not without justification then the Watergate cover-up was worse than the original crime. If you commit a crime (I haven’t, of course!) it’s always best to ‘fess up. Joe Biden may discover that before the year is out. The Chinese most certainly are. The first cracks have already started to appear in the naturally occurring virus theory. Only this weekend those nice people at the Gatestone Institute in New York City have openly questioned it.
The credibility of the Chinese Communist Party is on the line. Built on one of the grossest deceptions in the history of mankind and a creature of the Abwehr, people should have stopped taking it seriously years ago. Even sinophile organizations like the Cabinet Office, which wants to replace the special relationship with America with a client relationship with Peking, must be having second thoughts.
Covid-19 (I’m going with the flow and using a lower case) is a bio-weapon, pure and simple, developed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, China’s main biological warfare establishment. The only questions are how did it get out, who was the intended target and were the ChiComs seriously going to use it?
I’ve already indicated my view that this was an unintended release. Given that it’s primarily an economic disruptor, not a killer, I simply cannot conceive of why Peking would want to shaft their own economy. The Communist Party can only get away with running an autocratic one-party state if it delivers prosperity and strength, and the latter is to a large extent dependent upon the former.
Since we passed peak population growth in the late 1960s concern about population growth could not rationally lead a sane government to conclude that it needed to cull its own population. The rate of population growth is, in fact, declining steadily. The planetary population reached one billion around 1804, two billion around 1930, three billion around 1960 and four billion around 1974. Thus the fourth billion only took around half the time of the third. We’re now at just over 7,750,000 people but the yearly growth rate is down to just over 1%.
Technological improvements, including agricultural technology, and increasing urbanization mean that we can cope with the increase, indeed we are coping. Some countries are coping better than others, but that’s because they have inefficient systems of government and haven’t grasped the Laffer Curve. By the second half of this century at the latest, we should have commenced the permanent settlement of space, starting with the Moon.
There’s simply no way that Britain or America could have organized a release of Covid-19 in China – our intelligence agencies are too heavily compromised by the DVD. Neither country has a properly functioning intelligence community. No, this was clearly an accidental release.
Who was the intended target?
If the facts change I change my opinion – I’m not a liberal. The last week has seen some interesting casualties, in Iran. It looks to me as though we had a bunch of Iranian intelligence officers visiting Wuhan and I don’t think they were there because they liked bat soup.
I suspect that they were in Wuhan acquiring some Covid-19 and got caught up in the release. It’s even just possible that the release was linked in some way to the transfer, which would have been a critical stage in Iranian acquisition of a biological WMD capability (Iran already has nukes of course).
Either way, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we have senior Iranian intelligence officers and other regime figures coming down with a touch of Coronavirus. Assuming that the Iranians were arming themselves with Covid-19 they would only have had one target in mind – Israel. I’m pretty sure they weren’t intending to whack the Ethiopians.
In my opinion, this wasn’t just a Chinese own goal, but an Iranian. If they ever played each other at soccer the match would make hilarious watching.
Fatality rate
Not all Chinese scientists are mad. Some sensible Chinese scientists, who are trying to limit the death toll and probably wish they could give Xi Jinping a dose, have concluded that the virus has mutated. I respectfully agree. They’re calling the two strains ‘L’ and ‘S’, but in order to cause confusion, I’m going to call them Covid-19a and b.
It looks as though the first, more lethal strain (‘a’) has a fatality rate of about 2.5%. The ‘b’ strain appears to be rather less lethal, with a fatality rate of about 1%. This would explain the differential casualty rates between Hubei Province, the rest of China and the West. That’s still pretty lethal for the flu, but it’s a lot better than Spanish Flu or SARS, which also looks like a bio-weapon. Covid-19b is the bio-weapon you want if you want to get whacked by a bio-weapon that is.
Is it a pandemic?
No, is the short answer. A couple of thousand dead Chinese and a couple of hundred dead Italians don’t add up to a pandemic, however sad it might be for the individuals concerned and their families. The media keep banging on about ‘global’ infection and death rates when what they really mean s Chinese infection and death rates. The overwhelming majority of cases have been in the country which was crazy enough, and malicious enough, to create the weapon in the first place, that is to say, the People’s Republic of China. (It may not be a people’s republic for much longer, of course, indeed at this rate, they’ll probably bring back the Emperor!)
The British media announced the second death here as though it was a great tragedy. Then it turned out that it was in Milton Keynes, no offense intended. The death toll so far is about average for Nottingham on a Saturday night, indeed there have been more murders since the outbreak began than deaths from Covid-19.
Since the Johnson government is committed, like its predecessors, to keeping the murder rate high by having soft sentences, that’s likely to remain the case, even with the Cabinet Office doing its best to drive up the Coronavirus death toll by importing more infected people from China and Iran. (The plan is having more success in Italy.) Sadly the government’s plan to encourage the Cabinet Secretary to take a holiday in northern Italy or book a cruise on Princess Cruises has yet to come to fruition.
Princess Cruises are of course being encouraged to infect as many passengers as possible by keeping the air-con going. If they’re wondering why Grand Princess is being kept offshore it’s because someone in Washington has finally worked out that Covid-19 is airborne. With respect, the President’s instincts on this are sound. I don’t trust CDC, not least since they have been suppressing the sordid truth about Spanish Flu for over 15 years.
Aside from cleaning out a few supermarkets of their bog roll, suggesting that some people have confused Coronavirus with cholera, there hasn’t been any panic in Britain. I spent today on the wonderful Mid-Hants Railway in Hampshire, which runs between Alresford and Alton. Nobody was wearing masks and everybody was enjoying themselves, especially acute cockerpoo named Stanley.
Driving to Alresford through the glorious, albeit wet, Hampshire countryside, listening to John Rutter’s magnificent setting of the Lord’s Prayer on Classic FM, on my way to spend a day behind steam engines, I was reminded of what a wonderful country this is. Britain is now at peace, after 47 years of disastrous and divisive EU membership. We’re still on our feet, just about, despite all that various half-baked European tyrants and maniacs, from Louis XIV, Napoleon, the Kaiser and Adolf Hitler to Michel Barnier, have tried to throw at us.
This weekend has seen a very special visitor on the Mid-Hants, of course: Flying Scotsman, the world’s most famous steam locomotive. She’s looking in tip-top condition, even with those nasty German-style smoke deflectors. Sadly she’s not allowed to do 100 mph on the Mid-Hants, which officially is a light railroad with a speed limit of 25 mph. (Ideally, heritage railroads in Britain should be allowed to establish themselves through private Acts of Parliament, which would allow them to set safe speed limits according to the nature of the line and the state of the track and not have themselves fettered by a diktat from Whitehall, although 100 mph on the Mid-Hants would be pushing it!)
Speaking of diktats from Whitehall all carriages on steam railroads in Britain have to carry warning signs above the windows ordering you not to open them whilst the train is in motion. This is all because a couple of passengers on steam charters, lacking route knowledge, have stuck their heads out of windows at inopportune moments, and lost them.
Admittedly it can be upsetting for some passengers, especially the non-British ones, to have to step over a headless corpse on their way to the buffet car, but why spoil everybody else’s fun? Steam railroads are actually very safe, and, like the Mid-Hants, very well run.
Whither the Democrats?
The Democratic Party nomination is now a two-horse race, or, more accurately, a race between two old nags. No offense, but I wouldn’t enter either in the 3.30 at Newmarket. My prediction is that Senator Sanders won’t have the numbers to win in the first round and that the super-delegates will swing it to Joe Biden in the second.
Joe Biden faces five fundamental problems, it seems to be, each enough to sink him come November:
(1) His age. He’s not actually that much older than President Trump. The problem is that he looks at least 10 years older and electorates tend to think about how a President is going to perform at the end of his or her term, not just at the beginning. Moreover, he’s already starting to show signs of losing it. As a Democrat he wouldn’t have that many marbles, to begin with, no offense intended. He doesn’t want to be losing any now.
(2) The Obama birthplace cover-up. Remember the advice I gave about doing a DNA test on ‘von’ Obama’s alleged paternal grandmother was given to the DIA as well as the CIA. That means the Pentagon have got it, indeed I know they’re got it, because the subject came up, behind closed doors, with an armed guard on them. As Vice-President, Joe Biden must have known that Obama wasn’t a citizen. I know Joe’s a former senator but he can’t have been that stupid.
(3) Burisma. The Republicans are bound to home in on the appointment of Hunter Biden and ask how well he speaks Ukrainian. The whole Ukraine thing is a mess for Biden, and he knows it.
(4) Abortion. Away from the liberal littoral the American electorate just doesn’t go in for baby-killing. Joe Biden’s plan to kill more babies isn’t likely to play well in the Mid-West. Roe v. Wade is about to sink without trace in the Supreme Court, whatever Chuck Schumer may say, not because the majority are political, but because it’s bad law. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson didn’t believe in abortion and giving women the right to terminate the lives of their unborn children was about the last thing on the minds of the Founding Fathers. If there had been any Founding Mothers it wouldn’t have been on their minds either. Come November abortion is likely to be a hot-button issue. The Democrats may find that it’s about as popular as Coronavirus. It doesn’t matter how many times feminists assert that only one life is involved in the decision to abort a foetus. They’re wrong. Women get to bear children, guys get to take the trash out. That’s just the way it is. Men and women are equal, but we’re not the same, and
(5) Gun control. Democrats expect to be protected by armed security, but they want to take away your guns. Of course, that means that the occasionally unhinged maniac is going to acquire a gun and shoot people, but if you’ve got a gun you can shoot him. Since the world is largely run by unhinged maniacs (have you ever met anyone from the Cabinet Office?) apart from America of course, complaining about what an unhinged maniac might do doesn’t actually cut that much ice with Joe and Jill public.
I think the President will win by a landslide.
Whither Labour?
Speaking of landslides Rebecca Long-Bailey is about to get buried in one. Labour’s long-drawn-out leadership contest is going Sir Keir Starmer’s way, big time. He’s going to find winning the next General Election a whole lot harder, however, even with Cabinet Office backing.
It’s not that the Cabinet Office is left-wing. Sir Keir doesn’t believe in democracy and thinks that officials should run the country. He would prefer European officials to do the job, of course, but if he can’t have the country run from Brussels he’d rather have it run from Whitehall than Number 10, no offense intended.
Recent Reading: Sailors On The Rocks (Peter C. Smith, 2015)
This book is all about Royal Navy shipwrecks, of which there have been quite a few. In fairness to the Royal Navy, most photographs of shipwrecks, almost by definition, are taken in daylight, usually in calm weather. People then tend to ask ‘how could they have missed that rock etc.’ As Peter Smith explains, however, most shipwrecks take place at night, usually in foul weather.
The most famous recent shipwreck, that of the DDG HMS Nottingham, on Wolf Rock off the coast of Lord Howe Island, in 2002, raised a few eyebrows at the time. How could a ship with every modern navigation aid hit a well-charted rock? It turns out that due to MOD cheeseparing the Nottingham did not, in fact, have every conceivable modern navaid. I was surprised to learn, for example, that she was still using paper charts and apparently wasn’t even fitted with GPS.
Peter Smith, a noted naval historian with sensible views about global warming, is quite fair about the incident. Leaving aside the decision to hit the rock, the officers and crew did just about everything right that night. Damage control was excellent and no lives were lost.
The funniest incident, although not so funny for her skipper and navigator, was the running aground of the old ‘S’ class destroyer HMS Sturdy off the Scottish coast in 1940. What’s so funny about that, I hear you ask? The skipper thought they had hit Northern Ireland! That’s what’s referred to in the trade as a dead-reckoning error.
Smith offers fresh insights into the famous incident involving HMS Effingham in Norway in 1940. Effingham was one of the fine Hawkins class of 7.5”-gunned heavy cruisers completed shortly after the First World War. Graceful and powerful, they were the first modern heavy cruisers. Somewhat long in the tooth by 1940 however, Effingham had been rebuilt as a light cruiser using 6” guns leftover from the conversion of some of the similar vintage C class cruisers into anti-aircraft cruisers.
Part of the hastily assembled Norway operation, Effingham’s skipper decided to take the inshore approach to Bodo, thinking that not even the wily Hun would expect it. That’s because the wily Hun had been planning his invasion for months if not years and had charted in German! Poor old Effingham’s charts were in Norwegian!
Even that would have been fine had any of her officers been fluent in Norwegian or had the Royal Norwegian Navy been invited to send someone along. It rather looks as though the navigating officer misunderstood the Norwegian for ‘watch out, there’s a bloody great rock in the middle of this channel!’ The traditional explanation – that the navigator simply penciled over the rock on his chart – is unlikely to be true. Next time the Hun invades Norway we should ship some decent Norwegian beer and invite the Norwegian Navy along for the party.
It’s a very well researched and written piece of naval history and I recommend it.
This week’s TV review: Intelligence (Sky One, Airdate February 21st, 2020)
I sincerely hope this hilarious new intel comedy is shown Stateside. Starring David Schwimmer (Ross in Friends) as an NSA officer assigned to GCHQ, it sends up the FBI, the NSA, and GCHQ, in just about equal measure.
Schwimmer’s character, Jerry, is a loud-mouthed asshole (sorry, that should read ‘jerk’, I keep forgetting that this is a family website) who rubs his new boss up the wrong way. This is one of the few weaknesses in the plot – as an asshole, sorry ‘jerk’, Jerry really ought to have been cast as CIA, no offense intended. The NSA are very nice people and not at all obsessed with sex.
The GCHQ characters are a hoot and seem to have come straight from central casting. One can’t help feeling that creator Nick Mohammed must have had some inside help.
I don’t want to spoil the plot too much, but it turns out that Meade was anxious to offload Jerry and the FBI come calling. Something to do with helping out the Republican candidate in 2016. The FBI agent, as one would expect, had been sleeping with Jerry’s wife. Jerry then pretends to be gay and goes through a gay marriage to avoid extradition.
It’s very watchable and worth downloading if you can get it.


veteranstoday--2020-03-08--The Historical Background of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The historical background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is going back to 1917 ( the Balfour Declaration ) and the establishment of the British protectorate over Palestine ( the Palestine Mandate ) after WWI with its provision for a national home for the Jews , although formally not to be at the expense of the local inhabitants – the Palestinians .
Nevertheless , it became in practice the focal problem to keep an appropriate balance between these stipulations to be acceptable to both sides – the Jews and the Palestinians .
The people and the land Since the time of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ West Europe emerged a new trend of group identification of the people as ethnic or ethnocultural nations differently to the previous feudal trends from the Middle Ages based on religion , state ’ s borders or social strata ’ s belonging .
[ 1 ] In the course of time , a new trend of people ’ s identification as a product of the capitalistic system of production and social order became applied across the globe following the process of capitalistic globalization .
[ 2 ] As a direct consequence of such development @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understood nations , especially in the areas under colonial foreign rule , started to demand their national rights but among them , the most important demand was the right to self-rule in a nation-state of their own .
In other words , the ethnic or ethnic-confessional groups under foreign oppression demanded the rights of self-determination and political sovereignty .
[ 3 ] Since around 1900 , both the Jews and the Arab-Palestinians became involved in the process of developing ethnonational consciousness and mobilize their nations for the sake to achieve national-political goals .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ between them in regard to the creation of a nation-state of their own was that the Jews have been spread out across the world ( a diaspora ) since the fall of Jerusalem and Judea in the 1st century AD [ 4 ] while , in contrast , the Palestinians were concentrated in one place – Palestine .
From the very end of the 19th century , a newly formed Th .
Herzl ’ s Zionist movement had a task to identify land where the Jewish people can immigrate and settle to create @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Herzl ( 1860‒1904 ) , [ 5 ] Palestine was historically logical as an optimal land for the Jewish immigrants as it was the land of the Jewish states in the Antique .
[ 6 ] It was , however , an old idea and Th .
Herzl in his book-pamphlet which became the Bible of the Zionist movement was the first to analyze the conditions of the Jews in their assumed to be “ native ” land and calling for the establishment of a nation-state of the Jews in order to solve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to say to beat traditional European anti-Semitism and modern tendency of the Jewish assimilation .
But the focal problem was to somehow convince the Europeans that the Jews had the right on this land even after 2.000 years of emigration in the diaspora .
However , what was Th .
Herzel ’ s Eretz Yisrael in reality ?
For all Zionists and the majority of Jews , it was the Promised Land of milk and honey but in reality , the Promised Land was a barren , rocky and obscure Ottoman province since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a clear majority population .
On this narrow strip of land of East Mediterranean , the Jews and the Arab Palestinians lived side by side at the time of the First Zionist Congress some 400.000 Arabs and some 50.000 Jews .
[ 7 ] Most of those Palestinian Jews have been bigot Orthodox [ 8 ] who entirely depended on their existence on charitable offerings of different Jewish societies in Europe which have been distributed to them by the communal organizations set up mainly exactly for that purpose .
Palestine is a historic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the River of Jordan and the Mediterranean seacoast .
Palestine is called Holy Land by the Jews , Christians , and the Muslims because of its spiritual links with Judaism , Christianity as well as Islam .
The land experienced many changes and lordships in history followed by changes of frontiers and its political status .
For each of the regional denominations , Palestine contains several sacred places .
In the so-called biblical times , on the territory of Palestine , the Kingdoms of Israel and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 1st century AD .
The final wave of Jewish expulsion to diaspora from Palestine started after the abortive uprising of Bar Kochba in 132−135 .
Up to the emergence of Islam , Palestine historically was controlled by the Ancient Egyptians , Assyrians , Persians , the Roman Empire , and finally by the Byzantine Empire ( the East Roman Empire ) alongside with the periods of the independence of the Jewish kingdoms .
The land became occupied by the Muslim Arabians in 634 AD .
Since then , Palestine was populated by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remained a central reference point to the Jewish people in diaspora as their “ Land of Israel ” or Eretz Yisrael .
Palestine remained under Muslim rule up to WWI , being part of the Ottoman Empire ( 1516−1917 ) , when combined the Ottoman and German army became defeated by the Brits at Megiddo , except for the time during the West European Crusades from 1098 to 1197 .
[ 9 ] The term Palestine was used as the official political title for the land westward of the Jordan River mandated in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United Kingdom ( from 1920 up to 1947 ) .
However , after 1948 , the term Palestine continues to be used , but now in order to identify rather a geographical than a political entity .
It is used today particularly in the context of the struggle over the land and political rights of Palestinian Arabs displaced since Israel became established .
[ 10 ] The Jewish migrations to Palestine in 1882−1914 As a consequence of renewed pogroms in East Europe in 1881 , a first wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before WWI from 1904 to 1914 .
[ 11 ] The immigration of the Jewish settlers became encouraged by the 1917 Balfour Declaration , and very much intensified since May 1948 when the Zionist State of Israel was proclaimed and established .
There were historically two types of motives for the Jews to come to Eretz Yisrael ( In Hebrew , the “ Land of Israel ” ) : • The traditional motive was prayer and study , followed by death and burial in the holy soil .
• Later , since the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jew being secular and in many cases idealistic began to arrive in Palestine but many of them have been driven from their native lands by anti-Semitic persecution .
In 1882 there was the first organized wave of European Jewish immigration to Palestine .
Since the 1897 First World Zionist Congress in Basel , there was an inflow of European Jews into Palestine especially during the British Mandate time followed by the British allowed policy of land-buying by the Jewish Agency what was , in fact , indirect preparation for the creation of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] In other words , such a policy was designed to alienate land from the Palestinians , stipulating that it could not be in the Arab hands .
Even before the First Zionist Congress in Basel , Th .
Herzl tried to recruit prosperous and rich Jews ( like the Rothschild family ) to finance his plan of the Jewish emigration and colonization of Palestine but finally failed in his attempt .
Th .
Herzl decided to turn to the little men – hence his decision to convene the 1897 Basel Congress where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Jewish state .
After the congress , he did not lose the time in turning his political program into reality but at the same time , he strongly disagrees with the idea of peaceful settlement in Palestine , or according to his own words “ gradual Jewish infiltration ” , which , in fact , already started even before the meeting of the Zionist in Basel .
At that time , Palestine as an Ottoman province did not constitute a single political-administrative unit .
The northern districts have been parts of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jerusalem was under the direct authority of the central Ottoman Government in Istanbul because of the international significance of the city of Jerusalem and the town of Bethlehem as religious centers equally important for Islam , Judaism and Christianity .
[ 13 ] A vast majority of the Arabs either Muslims or Christians have been living in several hundred villages in a rural environment .
Concerning the town settlers of the Arab origin , two biggest of them were Jaffa and Nablus together with Jerusalem as economically the most prosperous urban settlements .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ biggest number of Palestinian Jews was living in four urban settlements of the most important religious significance to them : Jerusalem , Hebron , Safed , and Tiberias .
They have been followers of traditional , Orthodox religious practices spending much time studying religious texts and depended on the charity of world Jewry for survival .
[ 15 ] It has to be noticed that their attachment to Eretz Yisrael was much more of religion than of national character and they were not either involved in or supportive of Th .
Herzl ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and was , in fact , brought to Palestine by the Jewish immigrants after 1897 .
However , most of the Jewish immigrants to Palestine after 1897 who emigrated from Europe have been of secular type of life having commitments to the secular goals to create and maintain a modern Jewish nation based on the European standards of the time and to establish an independent Jewish state – modern Israel but not to re-establish a biblical one .
During the first year of WWI , a total number of the Jews in Palestine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were settlers since 1897 .
On the other hand , the total number of the Arab population in Palestine in 1914 was some 683.000 .
The second wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine ( 1904−1914 ) had many intellectuals and middle-class Jews but the majority of those immigrants have been driven less by a vision of a new state than by the hope of having a new life , free of pogroms and persecutions .
Reposts are welcomed with the reference to ORIENTAL REVIEW .
[ 1 ] About the ethnicity , national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ John Hutchinson , Anthony D. Smith ( eds . )
, Nationalism , Oxford Readers , Oxford−New York : Oxford University Press , 1994 ; Montserrat Guibernau , John Rex ( eds . )
, The Ethnicity Reader : Nationalism , Multiculturalism and Migration , Malden , MA : Polity Press , 1997 ] .
[ 2 ] About globalization , see in [ Frank J. Lechner , John Boli ( eds . )
, The Globalization Reader , Fifth Edition , Wiley-Blackwell , 2014 ] .
[ 3 ] In the science @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emerged out of the 18th-century concern for freedom and the primacy of the individual will .
In principle , it can be applied to any kind of group of people for whom a collective will is to be considered .
However , in the next century , the right to self-determination is understood exclusively to nations but not , for instance , to the national minorities of confessional groups as such .
National self-determination was the principle applied by the US ’ s President Woodrow Wilson to break three empires after WWI .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of OUN , in the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence of Colonial Countries and Peoples , and in the 1970 Declaration of the Principles of International Law .
However , self-determination , as taken to its most vicious extremes , leads in practice to phenomena as , for instance , “ ethnic cleansing ” that was recently in the 1990s practiced , for example , against the Serbs in neo-Nazifascist Croatia of Dr. Franjo Tuđman or in NATO ’ s occupied Kosovo-Metochia after the 1998−1999 Kosovo War .
In short , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political sciences to chose their own destiny and to govern themselves not necessary in their own independent state [ Richard W. Mansbach , Kirsten L. Taylor , Introduction to Global Politics , London−New York : Routledge Taylor & Francis Group , 2012 , 583 ] .
Sovereignty is the claim to have the ultimate political authority or to be subject to no higher power concerning the making and executing of political decisions .
In the system of international relations ( the IR ) , sovereignty is the claim by the state to full @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claims to sovereignty is the foundation of the international community .
In short , sovereignty is a status of legal autonomy that is enjoyed by states and consequently , their Governments have exclusive authority within their borders and enjoy the rights of membership of the international political community [ Jeffrey Haynes , Peter Hough , Shahin Malik , Lloyd Pettiford , World Politics , New York : Routledge Taylor & Francis Group , 2011 , 714 ] .
[ 4 ] About the fall of Jerusalem , see in [ Josephus , The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Penguin Books , 1999 ] .
Josephus Flavius ( born as Joseph ben Matthias , c. 37−c .
100 ) was a Jewish historian , Pharisee and General in the Roman army .
He was a leader of the Jewish rebellion against the Roman Empire in 66 AD and was captured in 67 .
His life was spared when he prophesied that Vespasian would become an Emperor .
Subsequently , Josephus received Roman citizenship and a pension .
He is today well-known as a historian who wrote the Jewish War as an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up to the rebellion .
Another of his historiographic work was Antiquities of the Jews – history since the Creation up to 66 AD .
There were two Jewish rebellions against the Roman power which inspired Jewish diaspora from Palestine : in 66−73 ; and in 132−135 [ Џон Бордман , Џаспер Грифин , Озвин Мари ( приредили ) , Оксфордска историја Грчке и хеленистичког света , Београд : CLIO , 1999 , 541−542 ] .
[ 5 ] He was born on May 2nd , 1860 in Pest in the Austrian Empire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hebrew name Binyamin Ze ’ ev , along with the Hungarian Magyar Tivadar and the German Theodor .
In Pest , Th .
Herzl attended the Jewish parochial school , where he became acquainted with some biblical Hebrew and religious studies .
In 1878 , he moved to Vienna where he was studying law at the university and later working for the Ministry of Justice .
In 1897 , Th .
Herzl published his famous book Der Judenstaat , just a year before he convened the First Zionist Congress in Basle in Switzerland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a political pamphlet , he wrote that : “ The idea which I have developed in this pamphlet is a very old one : it is the restoration of the Jewish state ” [ Extracts from Theodor Herzl ’ s The Jewish State , Walter Laqueur , Barry Rubin ( eds . )
, The Israel-Arab Reader , London , 1995 , 6 ] .
According to him , the borders of Israel as Judenstaat had to be between the River of Nile in Egypt and the River of the Euphrates in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( est .
1948 ) is the third independent state of the Jews in Palestine .
The biblical Kanaan was a tiny strip of land some 130 km of length between the Jordan River , Mt .
Tiber , East Mediterranean littoral , and the Gaza Strip [ Giedrius Drukteinis ( sudarytojas ) , Izraelis : Žydų valstybė , Vilnius : Sofoklis , 2017 , 13 ] .
[ 8 ] The Orthodox Judaism is teaching that the Torah ( the five books of Moses ) contains all the divine revelation that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the case of Orthodox Judaism , all religious practices are strictly observed .
When it is required the interpretations of Torah , references are made to the Talmud .
The followers of Orthodox Judaism are practicing strict separation of women from men in the synagogues during the worshiping .
In Israel , exists only an Orthodox rabbinate .
While a majority of the Orthodox Jews support the Zionist movement , however , they deplore the secular origins of it and the fact that Israel is not a fully religious state .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only in two possible cases : 1 ) if he/she mother is a Jew ; or 2 ) the person undergoes an arduous process of conversion .
For the Orthodox Jews , it is prohibited to cut the beard , which probably originated in a wish to be distinguished from unbelievers .
About Jewish history and religion , see more in [ Дејвид Џ. Голдберг , Џон Д. Рејнер , Јевреји : Историја и религија , Београд : CLIO , 2003 ] .
The Israeli Law of Return that is governing Jewish emigration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Jewish grandmother as potential citizens of Israel .
Alongside with the Orthodox Judaism exist Liberal Judaism and Reform Judaism .
[ 9 ] [ Geoffrey Barraclough ( ed . )
, The Times Atlas of World History , Revised Edition , Maplewood , New Jersey : Hammond , 1986 ] .
[ 10 ] About the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the Israeli authority , see in [ Ilan Pappe , The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine , Oxford , England : Oneworld Publications , 2007 ] .
About the general history of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Џ. Голдберг , Џон Д. Рејнер , Јевреји : Историја и религија , Београд : CLIO , 2003 ] .
[ 11 ] The term pogrom from a very general point of view is used to describe organized massacres of Jews in the 20th century but especially during WWII in the Nazi-run concentration camps during the Holocaust .
[ 12 ] However , overwhelming of those Jewish emigrants came from Central and East Europe as well as from the Russian Empire .
About the Jews in Central and East Europe , see in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Central and East European Jews at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity , Vilnius : The Centre for Studies of the Culture and History of East European Jews , 2006 ] .
About the Jews in Russia , see in [ Т. Б. Гейликман , История Евреев в России , Москва , URSS , 2015 ] .
[ 13 ] The 1878 Ottoman census claims some 463.000 inhabitants of Jerusalem .
[ 14 ] The Ottoman population in 1884 was composed of 17.143.859 of which some 73.4 % were Muslims [ Reinhard Schulze @ @ @ @ @ @ @ World , London‒New York : I.B.Tauris Publishers , 1995 , 22 ] .
[ 15 ] Since the mid-18th century till WWII , Vilnius was known as “ Jerusalem of the North ” and was a center of Rabbinic Judaism and Jewish studies .
Almost half of the city populations have been the Jews but according to Israeli Cohen , journalist , and writer who visited Vilnius just before the beginning of WWII , around 75 % of Vilnius ’ Jews were dependent on the support of charitable and philanthropic organizations or private @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Philadelphia : The Jewish Publication Society of America , 1943 , 334 ] .
In Jewish St. in the Old Town of Vilnius , it was established in 1892 the biggest Judaica library in the world – the Strashun Library ( or the Jewish Library of Vilnius ) by founder Mattityahu Strashun ( 1817−1885 ) .
The library was gone in 1944 as a consequence of the fight between the Germans and the Red Army .
The Library collection reached 22.000 items by 1935 [ Aelita Ambrulevičiūtė , Gintė Konstantinavičiūtė , Giedrė Polkaitė-Petkevičienė @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Talk : Everyday Life in Žydų Street in the 19th−20th , Century ( up to 1940 ) , Vilnius : Aukso žuvys , 2018 , 97−100 ] .
Vilnius up to WWII had and famous Great Synagogue .
A well-known and respected Gaon of Vilnius – Elijah ben Salomon spent all of his life in Vilnius ( 1720−1797 ) .
The importance of the Jewish Vilnius for the Zionist movement can be seen from the fact that the Zionist leader Th .
Herzl visited Vilnius in 1903 when the Jewish representatives met @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rabbi Board House of the Great Vilnius Synagogue [ Tomas Venclova , Vilnius City Guide , Vilnius : R. Paknio leidykla , 2018 , 122 ] .

Oriental Review: The historical background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is going back to 1917 (the Balfour Declaration) and the establishment of the British protectorate over Palestine (the Palestine Mandate) after WWI with its provision for a national home for the Jews, although formally not to be at the expense of the local inhabitants – the Palestinians.
Nevertheless, it became in practice the focal problem to keep an appropriate balance between these stipulations to be acceptable to both sides – the Jews and the Palestinians.
Since the time of the Enlightenment followed by the Romanticism, in West Europe emerged a new trend of group identification of the people as ethnic or ethnocultural nations differently to the previous feudal trends from the Middle Ages based on religion, state’s borders or social strata’s belonging.[1] In the course of time, a new trend of people’s identification as a product of the capitalistic system of production and social order became applied across the globe following the process of capitalistic globalization.[2] As a direct consequence of such development of the group identities, the newly understood nations, especially in the areas under colonial foreign rule, started to demand their national rights but among them, the most important demand was the right to self-rule in a nation-state of their own. In other words, the ethnic or ethnic-confessional groups under foreign oppression demanded the rights of self-determination and political sovereignty.[3]
Since around 1900, both the Jews and the Arab-Palestinians became involved in the process of developing ethnonational consciousness and mobilize their nations for the sake to achieve national-political goals. However, one of the focal differences between them in regard to the creation of a nation-state of their own was that the Jews have been spread out across the world (a diaspora) since the fall of Jerusalem and Judea in the 1st century AD[4] while, in contrast, the Palestinians were concentrated in one place – Palestine. From the very end of the 19th century, a newly formed Th. Herzl’s Zionist movement had a task to identify land where the Jewish people can immigrate and settle to create their own nation-state. For Th. Herzl (1860‒1904),[5] Palestine was historically logical as an optimal land for the Jewish immigrants as it was the land of the Jewish states in the Antique.
[6] It was, however, an old idea and Th. Herzl in his book-pamphlet which became the Bible of the Zionist movement was the first to analyze the conditions of the Jews in their assumed to be “native” land and calling for the establishment of a nation-state of the Jews in order to solve the Jewish Question in Europe or better to say to beat traditional European anti-Semitism and modern tendency of the Jewish assimilation. But the focal problem was to somehow convince the Europeans that the Jews had the right on this land even after 2.000 years of emigration in the diaspora.
However, what was Th. Herzel’s Eretz Yisrael in reality? For all Zionists and the majority of Jews, it was the Promised Land of milk and honey but in reality, the Promised Land was a barren, rocky and obscure Ottoman province since 1517 settled by the Muslim Arabs as a clear majority population.
On this narrow strip of land of East Mediterranean, the Jews and the Arab Palestinians lived side by side at the time of the First Zionist Congress some 400.000 Arabs and some 50.000 Jews.[7] Most of those Palestinian Jews have been bigot Orthodox[8] who entirely depended on their existence on charitable offerings of different Jewish societies in Europe which have been distributed to them by the communal organizations set up mainly exactly for that purpose.
Palestine
Palestine is a historic land in the Middle East on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the River of Jordan and the Mediterranean seacoast. Palestine is called Holy Land by the Jews, Christians, and the Muslims because of its spiritual links with Judaism, Christianity as well as Islam.
The land experienced many changes and lordships in history followed by changes of frontiers and its political status. For each of the regional denominations, Palestine contains several sacred places. In the so-called biblical times, on the territory of Palestine, the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea existed until the Roman occupation in the 1st century AD. The final wave of Jewish expulsion to diaspora from Palestine started after the abortive uprising of Bar Kochba in 132−135.
Up to the emergence of Islam, Palestine historically was controlled by the Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, the Roman Empire, and finally by the Byzantine Empire (the East Roman Empire) alongside with the periods of the independence of the Jewish kingdoms.
The land became occupied by the Muslim Arabians in 634 AD. Since then, Palestine was populated by a majority of Arabs, although it remained a central reference point to the Jewish people in diaspora as their “Land of Israel” or Eretz Yisrael. Palestine remained under Muslim rule up to WWI, being part of the Ottoman Empire (1516−1917), when combined the Ottoman and German army became defeated by the Brits at Megiddo, except for the time during the West European Crusades from 1098 to 1197.[9] The term Palestine was used as the official political title for the land westward of the Jordan River mandated in the interwar and post-WWII period to the United Kingdom (from 1920 up to 1947).
However, after 1948, the term Palestine continues to be used, but now in order to identify rather a geographical than a political entity. It is used today particularly in the context of the struggle over the land and political rights of Palestinian Arabs displaced since Israel became established.[10]
The Jewish migrations to Palestine in 1882−1914
As a consequence of renewed pogroms in East Europe in 1881, a first wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine started in 1882 followed by another wave before WWI from 1904 to 1914.[11] The immigration of the Jewish settlers became encouraged by the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and very much intensified since May 1948 when the Zionist State of Israel was proclaimed and established.
There were historically two types of motives for the Jews to come to Eretz Yisrael (In Hebrew, the “Land of Israel”):
The traditional motive was prayer and study, followed by death and burial in the holy soil. Later, since the mid-19th century, a new type of Jew being secular and in many cases idealistic began to arrive in Palestine but many of them have been driven from their native lands by anti-Semitic persecution.
In 1882 there was the first organized wave of European Jewish immigration to Palestine. Since the 1897 First World Zionist Congress in Basel, there was an inflow of European Jews into Palestine especially during the British Mandate time followed by the British allowed policy of land-buying by the Jewish Agency what was, in fact, indirect preparation for the creation of the Jewish nation-state – Israel.[12] In other words, such a policy was designed to alienate land from the Palestinians, stipulating that it could not be in the Arab hands.
Even before the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Th. Herzl tried to recruit prosperous and rich Jews (like the Rothschild family) to finance his plan of the Jewish emigration and colonization of Palestine but finally failed in his attempt. Th. Herzl decided to turn to the little men – hence his decision to convene the 1897 Basel Congress where according to his diary, he founded the Jewish state. After the congress, he did not lose the time in turning his political program into reality but at the same time, he strongly disagrees with the idea of peaceful settlement in Palestine, or according to his own words “gradual Jewish infiltration”, which, in fact, already started even before the meeting of the Zionist in Basel.
At that time, Palestine as an Ottoman province did not constitute a single political-administrative unit. The northern districts have been parts of the province of Beirut, the district of Jerusalem was under the direct authority of the central Ottoman Government in Istanbul because of the international significance of the city of Jerusalem and the town of Bethlehem as religious centers equally important for Islam, Judaism and Christianity.[13]
A vast majority of the Arabs either Muslims or Christians have been living in several hundred villages in a rural environment. Concerning the town settlers of the Arab origin, two biggest of them were Jaffa and Nablus together with Jerusalem as economically the most prosperous urban settlements.[14]
Until WWI, the biggest number of Palestinian Jews was living in four urban settlements of the most important religious significance to them: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias. They have been followers of traditional, Orthodox religious practices spending much time studying religious texts and depended on the charity of world Jewry for survival.[15] It has to be noticed that their attachment to Eretz Yisrael was much more of religion than of national character and they were not either involved in or supportive of Th. Herzl’s Zionist movement that emerged in Europe and was, in fact, brought to Palestine by the Jewish immigrants after 1897.
However, most of the Jewish immigrants to Palestine after 1897 who emigrated from Europe have been of secular type of life having commitments to the secular goals to create and maintain a modern Jewish nation based on the European standards of the time and to establish an independent Jewish state – modern Israel but not to re-establish a biblical one. During the first year of WWI, a total number of the Jews in Palestine reached some 60.000 of whom some 36.000 were settlers since 1897. On the other hand, the total number of the Arab population in Palestine in 1914 was some 683.000.
The second wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine (1904−1914) had many intellectuals and middle-class Jews but the majority of those immigrants have been driven less by a vision of a new state than by the hope of having a new life, free of pogroms and persecutions.
Endnotes:
[1] About the ethnicity, national identity and nationalism, see in [John Hutchinson, Anthony D. Smith (eds.), Nationalism, Oxford Readers, Oxford−New York: Oxford University Press, 1994; Montserrat Guibernau, John Rex (eds.), The Ethnicity Reader: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration, Malden, MA: Polity Press, 1997].
[2] About globalization, see in [Frank J. Lechner, John Boli (eds.), The Globalization Reader, Fifth Edition, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014].
[3] In the science of politics, self-determination as an idea emerged out of the 18th-century concern for freedom and the primacy of the individual will. In principle, it can be applied to any kind of group of people for whom a collective will is to be considered. However, in the next century, the right to self-determination is understood exclusively to nations but not, for instance, to the national minorities of confessional groups as such. National self-determination was the principle applied by the US’s President Woodrow Wilson to break three empires after WWI. It is included in the 1945 Charter of OUN, in the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence of Colonial Countries and Peoples, and in the 1970 Declaration of the Principles of International Law. However, self-determination, as taken to its most vicious extremes, leads in practice to phenomena as, for instance, “ethnic cleansing” that was recently in the 1990s practiced, for example, against the Serbs in neo-Nazifascist Croatia of Dr. Franjo Tuđman or in NATO’s occupied Kosovo-Metochia after the 1998−1999 Kosovo War. In short, self-determination is the right of groups in political sciences to chose their own destiny and to govern themselves not necessary in their own independent state [Richard W. Mansbach, Kirsten L. Taylor, Introduction to Global Politics, London−New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2012, 583].
Sovereignty is the claim to have the ultimate political authority or to be subject to no higher power concerning the making and executing of political decisions. In the system of international relations (the IR), sovereignty is the claim by the state to full self-government, and the mutual recognition of claims to sovereignty is the foundation of the international community. In short, sovereignty is a status of legal autonomy that is enjoyed by states and consequently, their Governments have exclusive authority within their borders and enjoy the rights of membership of the international political community [Jeffrey Haynes, Peter Hough, Shahin Malik, Lloyd Pettiford, World Politics, New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2011, 714].
[4] About the fall of Jerusalem, see in [Josephus, The Fall of Jerusalem, London, England: Penguin Books, 1999]. Josephus Flavius (born as Joseph ben Matthias, c. 37−c. 100) was a Jewish historian, Pharisee and General in the Roman army. He was a leader of the Jewish rebellion against the Roman Empire in 66 AD and was captured in 67. His life was spared when he prophesied that Vespasian would become an Emperor. Subsequently, Josephus received Roman citizenship and a pension. He is today well-known as a historian who wrote the Jewish War as an eyewitness account of the historical events leading up to the rebellion. Another of his historiographic work was Antiquities of the Jews – history since the Creation up to 66 AD.
There were two Jewish rebellions against the Roman power which inspired Jewish diaspora from Palestine: in 66−73; and in 132−135 [Џон Бордман, Џаспер Грифин, Озвин Мари (приредили), Оксфордска историја Грчке и хеленистичког света, Београд: CLIO, 1999, 541−542].
[5] He was born on May 2nd, 1860 in Pest in the Austrian Empire at that time and was given the Hebrew name Binyamin Ze’ev, along with the Hungarian Magyar Tivadar and the German Theodor. In Pest, Th. Herzl attended the Jewish parochial school, where he became acquainted with some biblical Hebrew and religious studies. In 1878, he moved to Vienna where he was studying law at the university and later working for the Ministry of Justice. In 1897, Th. Herzl published his famous book Der Judenstaat, just a year before he convened the First Zionist Congress in Basle in Switzerland. In this book in a form of a political pamphlet, he wrote that: “The idea which I have developed in this pamphlet is a very old one: it is the restoration of the Jewish state” [Extracts from Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State, Walter Laqueur, Barry Rubin (eds.), The Israel-Arab Reader, London, 1995, 6]. According to him, the borders of Israel as Judenstaat had to be between the River of Nile in Egypt and the River of the Euphrates in Iraq.
[6] Present-day Israel (est. 1948) is the third independent state of the Jews in Palestine. The biblical Kanaan was a tiny strip of land some 130 km of length between the Jordan River, Mt. Tiber, East Mediterranean littoral, and the Gaza Strip [Giedrius Drukteinis (sudarytojas), Izraelis: Žydų valstybė, Vilnius: Sofoklis, 2017, 13].
[7] Ahron Bregman, A History of Israel, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 7.
[8] The Orthodox Judaism is teaching that the Torah (the five books of Moses) contains all the divine revelation that the Jews as a chosen people require. In the case of Orthodox Judaism, all religious practices are strictly observed. When it is required the interpretations of Torah, references are made to the Talmud. The followers of Orthodox Judaism are practicing strict separation of women from men in the synagogues during the worshiping. In Israel, exists only an Orthodox rabbinate. While a majority of the Orthodox Jews support the Zionist movement, however, they deplore the secular origins of it and the fact that Israel is not a fully religious state. The Orthodox Jews recognize one as a Jew only in two possible cases: 1) if he/she mother is a Jew; or 2) the person undergoes an arduous process of conversion. For the Orthodox Jews, it is prohibited to cut the beard, which probably originated in a wish to be distinguished from unbelievers. About Jewish history and religion, see more in [Дејвид Џ. Голдберг, Џон Д. Рејнер, Јевреји: Историја и религија, Београд: CLIO, 2003]. The Israeli Law of Return that is governing Jewish emigration back to Israel accepts all those with a Jewish grandmother as potential citizens of Israel. Alongside with the Orthodox Judaism exist Liberal Judaism and Reform Judaism.
[9] [Geoffrey Barraclough (ed.), The Times Atlas of World History, Revised Edition, Maplewood, New Jersey: Hammond, 1986].
[10] About the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the Israeli authority, see in [Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oxford, England: Oneworld Publications, 2007]. About the general history of the Jews, see in [Дејвид Џ. Голдберг, Џон Д. Рејнер, Јевреји: Историја и религија, Београд: CLIO, 2003].
[11] The term pogrom from a very general point of view is used to describe organized massacres of Jews in the 20th century but especially during WWII in the Nazi-run concentration camps during the Holocaust.
[12] However, overwhelming of those Jewish emigrants came from Central and East Europe as well as from the Russian Empire. About the Jews in Central and East Europe, see in [Jurgita Šiaučiunaitė-Verbickienė, Larisa Lempertienė, Central and East European Jews at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity, Vilnius: The Centre for Studies of the Culture and History of East European Jews, 2006]. About the Jews in Russia, see in [Т. Б. Гейликман, История Евреев в России, Москва, URSS, 2015].
[13] The 1878 Ottoman census claims some 463.000 inhabitants of Jerusalem.
[14] The Ottoman population in 1884 was composed of 17.143.859 of which some 73.4% were Muslims [Reinhard Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World, London‒New York: I.B.Tauris Publishers, 1995, 22].
[15] Since the mid-18th century till WWII, Vilnius was known as “Jerusalem of the North” and was a center of Rabbinic Judaism and Jewish studies. Almost half of the city populations have been the Jews but according to Israeli Cohen, journalist, and writer who visited Vilnius just before the beginning of WWII, around 75% of Vilnius’ Jews were dependent on the support of charitable and philanthropic organizations or private benefactors [Israeli Cohen, Vilna, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1943, 334]. In Jewish St. in the Old Town of Vilnius, it was established in 1892 the biggest Judaica library in the world – the Strashun Library (or the Jewish Library of Vilnius) by founder Mattityahu Strashun (1817−1885). The library was gone in 1944 as a consequence of the fight between the Germans and the Red Army. The Library collection reached 22.000 items by 1935 [Aelita Ambrulevičiūtė, Gintė Konstantinavičiūtė, Giedrė Polkaitė-Petkevičienė (compilers and authors), Houses that Talk: Everyday Life in Žydų Street in the 19th−20th, Century (up to 1940), Vilnius: Aukso žuvys, 2018, 97−100]. Vilnius up to WWII had and famous Great Synagogue. A well-known and respected Gaon of Vilnius – Elijah ben Salomon spent all of his life in Vilnius (1720−1797).
The importance of the Jewish Vilnius for the Zionist movement can be seen from the fact that the Zionist leader Th. Herzl visited Vilnius in 1903 when the Jewish representatives met him in the building of the Supreme Rabbi Board House of the Great Vilnius Synagogue [Tomas Venclova, Vilnius City Guide, Vilnius: R. Paknio leidykla, 2018, 122].


veteranstoday--2020-03-08--Why are Poles Getting so Worked UP Over the Holocaust?

Every time Poland ’ s involvement in the Holocaust gets mentioned , Warsaw freaks out .
Scandals surrounding whether the Poles took part in the extermination of the Jews erupt on an almost regular basis .
This time , Polish President Andrzej Duda has refused to go to the World Holocaust Forum set to take place on 23 January 2020 , allegedly because Russian President Vladimir Putin has also been invited to the event .
At the end of 2019 , the Polish government got into an argument with the Russian president over his statements regarding the Polish ambassador to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Putin said that , in the 1930s , Lipski suggested erecting a monument to Adolf Hitler in Warsaw for his plan to send Polish Jews to Africa “ for extinction and extermination ” .
Another theory is that the Polish president does not like the fact that one of the organisers of the forum is Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz , who has accused the Poles of anti-Semitism .
Last year , the Israeli foreign minister refused to apologise for his comment that “ the Poles suckle anti-Semitism from their mother ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that time , the insulted Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki cancelled his official visit to Israel .
The US ambassador to Poland , Georgette Mosbacher , intervened in the dispute and called on the Israeli foreign minister to apologise for his comment .
Even earlier , in February 2019 , the Polish foreign minister challenged Israeli envoy Anna Azari over the words “ the Poles collaborated with the Nazis ” ( with regard to the persecution of the Jews ) during the Second World War , which were allegedly spoken by Israeli Prime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an international meeting on the Middle East .
The Poles wanted clarification on the Israeli newspaper article in which the Israeli prime minister was quoted .
And they received clarification .
According to the Israeli envoy , Netanyahu had not been talking about the Polish nation : “ He only said that no person was sued for mentioning those individual Poles who collaborated with them.
” From Azari ’ s statement , it seems that the scandal erupted from nowhere .
Journalists had distorted a key part of the Israeli prime minister ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact , had even been complementary to the Poles , sort of a well done for rejecting the scandalous law that proposed punishing people for their thoughts rather than actions .
Be that as it may , the Jewish issue has always loomed large in Poland .
The Second World War became the apotheosis of Polish anti-Semitism .
Only 10 percent of Poland ’ s three million Jews survived the Holocaust , and it was in Poland that the highest number of concentration camps were located .
But Poland ’ s anti-Jewish laws @ @ @ @ @ @ @ occupied by the Nazis .
Before its occupation by the Third Reich , there was a special camp in the town of Bereza Kartuska for Jewish prisoners accused of anti-state activities .
And until the National Socialist German Workers ’ Party came to power in Germany , Poland had been the most anti-Semitic country in Europe .
After Poland ’ s occupation by the Third Reich , many Jewish families tried to avoid the gas chambers by hiding in forests .
To find them , the German police hired local residents .
Peasants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fire to huts where people could hide and threw grenades into cellars .
Hundreds of pogroms took place in Polish towns during the Second World War .
In 1941 , for example , in the town of Jedwabne , local residents herded all the Jews into the market square .
In the presence of German officers , they were locked in a barn and burned alive .
A total of 340 people were killed .
According to historians , large numbers of Poles were involved in the genocide .
They persecuted the Jews @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the police .
A reward was given for every Jew found or murdered – sugar , vodka , or the Jew ’ s clothes .
When Soviet Lieutenant Aleksandr Pechersky managed to organise a mass escape from the Nazis ’ Sobibor death camp in 1943 , most of those who escaped were recaptured by Polish peasants and handed over to the Germans .
There were also those who saved the Jews , however , and the Nazis executed 5,000 Poles for doing so .
A completely savage incident took place in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after the war had already ended .
The city was home to 280 Jews expelled from other places , and a crowd of thugs murdered 80 of them , just like that .
The massacre was provoked by rumours that the Jews had kidnapped a Polish baby , which was actually untrue .
Today , Poland is experiencing a resurgence of anti-Semitism .
Comments directed against Israel and the Jews can be heard coming from senior officials and politicians .
Football fans chant things like “ Jews off to the gas ” during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ desecrate Jewish cemeteries and monuments to Holocaust victims .
And tensions between the two countries are growing .
This is also due to a law adopted by the Polish Sejm in 2018 that criminalises references to Polish guilt in the Holocaust .
But the Israelis will never forget .
In Israel , of course , the law was perceived as an infringement on free speech and a desire to shut down debate on crimes committed against the Jews during the Nazi era .
The Israelis were particularly outraged at the attempt to impose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ victims themselves , which also fell under the new law .
After the law was also scorned by the US , which has a powerful Jewish lobby and is one of Poland ’ s biggest supporters , Warsaw was forced to repeal it .
However , Warsaw ’ s wariness over the possible monetisation of the problem has not diminished .
Before the outbreak of World War Two , there were 3.5 million Jews living in Poland .
They were brutally oppressed by the Polish authorities , which also tried to restrict them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ occupation , of which there is ample evidence .
Yet quite a few of the Polish Jews were rich and owned property .
They lost this , along with their lives , under the Nazis , but their relatives could well demand compensation .
Nerves are also on edge in Warsaw over law 447 , or JUST ( Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today ) , which provides for the return of property to Holocaust victims or their descendants .
The law was passed by Congress and signed by US President Donald Trump in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worked out that this could cost it the astronomical sum of up to $ 300 billion .
Poland does not currently have a national integrated programme for the restitution of property to Holocaust victims or material reparations for lost private property , although it signed the Terezin Declaration on Holocaust Era Assets and Related Issues in 2009 .
A year and a half after the JUST Act came into force , the US state secretary will have to report to Congress on its implementation and whether it has been breached by any of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This will be a disaster for Poland , since nearly half of the Holocaust victims in Europe were Polish Jews .
And although Poland was occupied from the autumn of 1939 almost until the end of the war , so , as a state , was not officially involved in the Holocaust , traces of Jewish property on its territory can still be found .

Oriental Review: Every time Poland’s involvement in the Holocaust gets mentioned, Warsaw freaks out. Scandals surrounding whether the Poles took part in the extermination of the Jews erupt on an almost regular basis.
This time, Polish President Andrzej Duda has refused to go to the World Holocaust Forum set to take place on 23 January 2020, allegedly because Russian President Vladimir Putin has also been invited to the event. At the end of 2019, the Polish government got into an argument with the Russian president over his statements regarding the Polish ambassador to the Third Reich, Józef Lipski. Putin said that, in the 1930s, Lipski suggested erecting a monument to Adolf Hitler in Warsaw for his plan to send Polish Jews to Africa “for extinction and extermination”.
Another theory is that the Polish president does not like the fact that one of the organisers of the forum is Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who has accused the Poles of anti-Semitism. Last year, the Israeli foreign minister refused to apologise for his comment that “the Poles suckle anti-Semitism from their mother’s breasts”. By way of protest that time, the insulted Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki cancelled his official visit to Israel. The US ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, intervened in the dispute and called on the Israeli foreign minister to apologise for his comment.
Even earlier, in February 2019, the Polish foreign minister challenged Israeli envoy Anna Azari over the words “the Poles collaborated with the Nazis” (with regard to the persecution of the Jews) during the Second World War, which was allegedly spoken by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while in Poland for an international meeting on the Middle East. The Poles wanted clarification on the Israeli newspaper article in which the Israeli prime minister was quoted.
And they received clarification. According to the Israeli envoy, Netanyahu had not been talking about the Polish nation: “He only said that no person was sued for mentioning those individual Poles who collaborated with them.”
From Azari’s statement, it seems that the scandal erupted from nowhere. Journalists had distorted a key part of the Israeli prime minister’s statement, which, in actual fact, had even been complementary to the Poles, sort of a well done for rejecting the scandalous law that proposed punishing people for their thoughts rather than actions.
Be that as it may, the Jewish issue has always loomed large in Poland. The Second World War became the apotheosis of Polish anti-Semitism. Only 10 per cent of Poland’s three million Jews survived the Holocaust, and it was in Poland that the highest number of concentration camps were located.
But Poland’s anti-Jewish laws were adopted long before the country was occupied by the Nazis. Before its occupation by the Third Reich, there was a special camp in the town of Bereza Kartuska for Jewish prisoners accused of anti-state activities. And until the National Socialist German Workers’ Party came to power in Germany, Poland had been the most anti-Semitic country in Europe.
Round-ups and pogroms
After Poland’s occupation by the Third Reich, many Jewish families tried to avoid the gas chambers by hiding in forests. To find them, the German police hired local residents. Peasants scoured the area with pitchforks, set fire to huts where people could hide and threw grenades into cellars.
Hundreds of pogroms took place in Polish towns during the Second World War. In 1941, for example, in the town of Jedwabne, local residents herded all the Jews into the market square. In the presence of German officers, they were locked in a barn and burned alive. A total of 340 people were killed.
According to historians, large numbers of Poles were involved in the genocide. They persecuted the Jews voluntarily and snitched on those in hiding to the police. A reward was given for every Jew found or murdered – sugar, vodka, or the Jew’s clothes.
When Soviet Lieutenant Aleksandr Pechersky managed to organise a mass escape from the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp in 1943, most of those who escaped were recaptured by Polish peasants and handed over to the Germans.
There were also those who saved the Jews, however, and the Nazis executed 5,000 Poles for doing so.
A completely savage incident took place in the Polish city of Kielce in 1946, after the war had already ended. The city was home to 280 Jews expelled from other places, and a crowd of thugs murdered 80 of them, just like that. The massacre was provoked by rumours that the Jews had kidnapped a Polish baby, which was actually untrue.
Modern attitudes
Today, Poland is experiencing a resurgence of anti-Semitism. Comments directed against Israel and the Jews can be heard coming from senior officials and politicians. Football fans chant things like “Jews off to the gas” during matches. Polish neo-Nazis across the country desecrate Jewish cemeteries and monuments to Holocaust victims. And tensions between the two countries are growing.
This is also due to a law adopted by the Polish Sejm in 2018 that criminalises references to Polish guilt in the Holocaust. But the Israelis will never forget.
In Israel, of course, the law was perceived as an infringement on free speech and a desire to shut down debate on crimes committed against the Jews during the Nazi era. The Israelis were particularly outraged at the attempt to impose a punishment for the testimony of Holocaust victims themselves, which also fell under the new law. After the law was also scorned by the US, which has a powerful Jewish lobby and is one of Poland’s biggest supporters, Warsaw was forced to repeal it.