Can President Trump Cure the Ills of America?

 

The United States new leader, President Donald J. Trump, promised to “Make America Great Again.” The real question should be can he cure the United States of her illness. This disease has numerous symptoms of which we will cover a few of the most threatening. The first on the list is a sinister little one which hides in plain sight. The current reproductive rate is 1.84 children per woman which is well below the 2.33 reproductive rate necessary for maintaining a nation’s population. This simply means that the United States will have fewer workers to support an aging population and this will only grow more and more serious over time. The only obvious solution is to allow for immigration, eventually massive immigration. From all expectation, any large immigration program will lead to a rebalancing of the predominant population statistics in the favor of whichever groups of foreign nations contribute to the immigration. The most readily available populations are from Central America and South America. This has been the trending for the past decades which is leading to a growing Hispanic population which is rapidly becoming the largest minority population and with time they will become the predominant population. There is a fortunate trait in that the vast majority of such immigrants hold similar religious identities and have a Judeo-Christian ethics and history which will make for a merging of the populations and not as much a shock to the culture or as much a threat for large changes in laws and outlook of the resultant population. Should the United States instead bring in immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) there would be an inevitable confrontation between the emerging culture and the currently existing culture. If history is any indicator, an increasing Islamic minority would at some point lead to an actual confrontation which the aging Judeo-Christian community who would most definitely loses.

 

The Donald-Make America Great Again-Trump

 

This problem has been traced from demographic studies to have a direct relation to the legalization of abortion after the 1973 Supreme Court Roe vs. Wade decision leading to nationally recognizing a legal right for a woman to obtain an abortion. The good news is that the numbers of abortions have steadily decreased over the past few decades. The not so great news is that this has not led to any measurable increase in the reproductive rate as was expected. Demographic studies have shown that couples are waiting until later in life before getting married. This had led to the obvious postponement of starting families and, as in most cases both husband and wife are professionals with careers, they often put off having a family until even later leading to many couples having a single child , or worse, deciding not to have children at all. Societal studies have also seen a trending in millennials for their deciding to forgo marriage, children and even permanent relationships instead settling to have small groups of friends who have open partnerships or some simply leading singular lives dropping in and out of relationships never desiring to become involved in a permanent relationship. Perhaps these individuals will settle down later in life but that will likely lead to a childless relationship as they may wait until past the point of fertility. Whatever the future, the current trends indicate that the only solution to the American childlessness will be through immigration and praying that the new immigrants prove immune to the childless culture as they come from a more reproductive friendly culture.

 

Islamic immigrants would also have a higher reproductive rate than the current American culture. The one catch is that it has been found that as financial wealth of a society increases, reproductive rates plummet. This was what has struck Europe and has been given as one of the reasons the political rulers have been allowing a free import of Syrian and other MENA refugees. Whether such a program was a good idea or a potential allowing for an infiltration leading to an eventual takeover by Islamic policies is something which is still being debated. Time may settle that debate before any conclusions are forthcoming. The one certainty is that many of the existing European populations are not overly excited about the newcomers and may be voting in a whole new and opposing set of leaders as elections sweep across the continent. Should Europe start to become an Islamic based society, then that may play well for solving some of the system shock for the United States as many of the elite, and any others with sufficient means, would flee Europe for the apparent safety of the United States. Much of this future will depend on socioeconomic developments and for the existing confrontations and other dangerous situations not developing into a far broader set of conflicts leading eventually to an all-encompassing conflict. This might actually have the effect of shocking the current Western World out of its self-serving egoism and realizing that there is only a future if there exists a prodigy to which to hand over that future and that depends on having said prodigy. Having such a revelation sweep Western society would be a blessing though it would be preferable for it not to have to be impressed through some horrific conflict as such changes have been initiated in previous eras. Such conflagrations have also brought down empires which not much earlier had been considered a permanent fixture assured forever into the future. The lesson there for the United States is that nothing remains on top forever, not Rome, not the British, not the Spanish, not the Egyptians, not Alexander’s Greeks and not even China, one of the longest continuous empires still existing and asserting a presence in the modern age.

 

Another serious illness striking the United States is the political divide which has not only grown wider this century but has also grown far nastier and more toxic. This past week proved this beyond any shadow of doubt. When President Obama was first elected in 2008 there was disappointment on the Republican side but most Americans hoped for the best. Many were disappointed but still believed there was hope and President Obama was reelected. After the 2012 election there was a smattering of protests which were nonviolent and largely quiet. The media made sure they had a short self-life by largely ignoring their existence. This present Inauguration brought back the protests and cries of foul from 2000 except with far more violence and vitriol. Madonna spoke of dreaming of blowing up the White House. That was quite far overboard as that would be such a waste of the rebuild after the War of 1812 which was finally completed in 1817 and President James Monroe moved into the new and improved White House. The demonstrations were boisterous and somewhat over the top including the burning of President Trump in effigy. The problem was with the violent actors who destroyed property, attacked police, attacked injuring innocent people who were simply attending Inaugural Dances including the insulting, spitting upon and injuring of a Gold Star widow and her sister. Spirited protests and debate are one thing and destruction of property and assaulting people and police is a completely different and unacceptable form of protest and should be considered beyond the pale. People work and depend on those places for their families and futures and the destruction of their workplaces hurt innocents and since a good many of these places were in major cities, especially those in Washington D.C. where over 90% voted for Hillary Clinton, most of the people hurt by these unscrupulous acts were Hillary supporters. Whatever the presumed excuse, such violence, if left unchecked, only grows and eventually leads to the destruction of the society.

 

The other problem with the violence was that it was presumed to be in support of groups which resemble numerous fascist entities of the past such as the infamous Brownshirts which used violence in order to scare the German people into demanding the government do something, anything, just end the violence. Once the people agreed to the government assuming emergency powers giving them absolute power, the Nazis wiped out the Brownshirts replacing them with the SS who became the new enforcers. The possibility that hidden somewhere within the leftist ranks are those seeking a repeat from history, using the rabble to stir up sufficient troubles at some point in the future to takeover and put in place a dictatorial fascist governance is all too possibly the end result. This has been the manner in which virtually every democratic based government has fallen throughout history; so saying it could not happen here is a fool’s gambit. Many of the demonstrations resembled the Red Guard demonstrations at the beginning of the Communist takeover of Russia deposing the Russian Provisional Government which was democratically elected in a limited vote and was presumed to be setting up a democratic form of government when the Communists decided they didn’t need any democracy, they simply desired replacing one dictatorial government with another. Caesar also replaced a democratic republic of Rome relegating the Senate into an echo chamber until they decided to depose him old school. The assassination of Caesar did no good as all it did was immortalize his name making it the title for the reign of dictators until the fall of Rome centuries later. Obviously saying it cannot happen here is a blindness that no democracy can afford. Reportedly, American Abolitionist and liberal activist Wendell Phillips on January 28, 1852 speaking to members of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society stated,

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten. The living sap of today outgrows the dead rind of yesterday. The hand entrusted with power becomes, either from human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot; only by unintermitted agitation can a people be sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.”

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Who were the colonizers of MENA Pre-World War I?

 

We hear much talk by the mainstream media and especially the leftist editorialists about how the deprived victims the Arab populations of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) who were subjugated beneath the imperial European (and presumably American) colonizers. Exactly who were these colonizers and for how long had they exploited the citizens of MENA’s lands? Well, according to the liberal and mainstream media story line as they infer, though never quite say outright, were England, France, Italy and Spain. Further, there will be implications of over a century to potentially many centuries these colonial powers ruled over most of the MENA nations with many remaining under colonial control after World War I and even after World War II with the old dynasties lasting through 1970 or even 1979, and the most brash might even claim that there is a colonial power still ruling in the Middle East to this very day, though this last claim is as big a lie as they come. Perhaps a closer look is in order to get an honest picture.

 

Let’s begin with when the nations in MENA first came under imperial control and were placed under the presumed onus of foreign rule. Colonial rule came to the MENA nations in an early period which many of us first heard referenced when we studied the Bible. Perhaps some of the earliest colonial powers are not exactly what many of us would ever consider to be colonial powers yet as these were rulers who conquered other nations and subjugated them, these were the original colonialists. Terms can be applied to situations which most of us never would have considered applicable but when you are weaving a lie it is easy to go overboard in your definitions and apply modern terms to ancient events. The Egyptians would have been the first of the colonial powers many of us knew about despite there were others close to the same age such as the Hittites, Minoans, Mesopotamian, Persian and even Israel under Kings David and Solomon. All of these predated the better known Greek and Roman Empires and dates back to the ancient beginnings of China and Mayan cultures. A handy little timeline can be seen below. For the purpose of choosing a start date, why not begin around the year five-hundred which is after the fall of Rome and the Western Roman Empire while the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire was limping into the future feebly.

 

 

Timeline of World Civilizations 3700 BCE through 1700 CE

 

 

All the most ancient empires have fallen and for the most part there was peace with each city moving forward loosely attached to Constantinople across the entirety of MENA though the farther west one went across northern Africa, which had less the ties to the Byzantine rule. This left this area ripe for the pickings and a harvester was about to enter the scene. Shortly before the year seven-hundred a new force emerged under the banner of Islam and began its spread heading initially into the heart of the former lands of Babylon, Persia and into Egypt. There was little resistance as the Byzantine Empire was crumbling and unable to field a credible defense. Jerusalem fell in April 637 to the forces of the Rashidun Caliphate. The conditions for the surrender were understood to be the conquering Islamic rulers would give guarantees of civil and religious freedoms for the Christians under the rule from Jerusalem in exchange for Jizya, a tax on non-Muslims given in exchange for their protections which also included the Christians acceptance of Dhimmitude, a form of subservient lower class citizenship which was to be protected and tolerated and condoned. The spread of Islam took place largely in three stages, the first during the life of Mohammad, Next under the first four Caliphs, and finally under Umayyad Rule which was the basis for the Caliphate (see map below).

 

 

Expansion of Islam Across MENA and threaten Europe before Ottoman Rule

 

 

After the spread of the Caliphate which continued what was technically an empire which implied colonization over territories beyond the initial founding under Mohammad which was centered around Medina, the beginnings of Mohammad’s power, and included the Mecca region which Mohammad took partially as it was the closes power base, the Meccan rulers denied Mohammad’s claim to rightful ruler and had chased the early Mohammad from their territories as they rejected his preaching and teachings and determined he was a corrupting influence. The Caliphate had followed particular lines of succession which had split early after Mohammad’s death which formed the duality which still splits Islam into competing camps of Sunnis and Shiites. For the largest part the Sunni Muslims outnumbered and were the stronger camp though never quite capable, or more likely never made an effort to unify belief as beliefs can be near impossible to be completely defeated thus any effort would eventually prove fruitless and not worth the efforts expended. Instead the Sunni simply kept expanding their empire and largely tolerated the Shiites unless attacked and given no choice. When the two sects did engage each other the Sunni proved superior defeating and often killing the Shiites and their rulers in battle. The Caliphate continued to rule their lands after and expanding conquering Spain and headed into Frankish territory, early France, where the Caliphate reached is furthest advance. After taking Granada they advanced to the next major city, Tours, where a decisive battle turned the tides in the year 732 CE finally having a definitive defeat of the Caliphate forces. The battle victory is credited to Charles Martellus (the Hammer) Martel, who lost a mere thousand to fifteen-hundred of his forces, would later in history be granted the title of savior of Christianity. The vanquished was Abd Ar-Rahman Al Ghafiqi who was slain during the battle along with an estimated twelve-thousand of his warriors.

 

Beginning at the beginning of the fourteenth century the Ottoman Empire began to make its presence felt which would eventually lead to their conquering the entirety of the Caliphate at their most powerful. Until this point the Caliphate ruled over the near entirety of MENA and had spread into Spain and southeastern Europe. The map below shows the advances and periods of the Ottoman Empire conquering the Caliphate, bringing an end to the successions of Caliphs and temporarily ending the violence between Shiite and Sunni camps. The Ottoman succession follows the lineage of Ottoman Beylik who initiated the spread and domain of his family tribe in the year 1300 as his aim was likely like everybody before them, to conquer the known world. The expansions continued from his death in 1359 through 1451 when the next ruler of the Ottomans who expanded the borders notably during his rule through 1481 was Medmed II. He was followed by Selim I (1512-1520) and Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566). There was expansion beyond this period where the Ottoman Empire reached its apex before its fortunes began to wane.

 

 

Ottoman Empire Ascending from 1300 through 1683 includes Golden Age of Islam

 

 

The Ottoman Empire caught the Caliphate as it was in retreat after having lost Spain (Andalusia) during the Christian Reconquista which was part of the campaign to rid Spain of its Moorish Muslims as well as the Jews and any other group which was not Catholic and sworn fealty to the crown. This period of the Christian Reconquista was a logical following from the victory at Tours by Charles (the Hammer) Martel and spanned an area of time stretching from its earliest uprisings in the north and northwest in the Battle of Covadonga in the summer of 722, a full decade before the battle of Tours, but this revolt was the very beginning of the end of Islamic rule in Spain (Andalusia). The battles continued until finally the signing of the Treaty of Granada on November 25, 1491. This was the end of the fighting with the turning over of the city of the final southern coastal towns of Granada. It was during the final push that King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile that the infamous Spanish Inquisition was initiated. The Spanish Inquisition lasted from November 1, 1478 through to July 15, 1834. The Inquisition was the attempt, a rather thorough and successful attempt, to convert, drive out or otherwise deal with any residual Moorish or Islamic followers remaining in Spain along with ridding Spain of its Jews who either fled with the Muslims or were chased eventually across all of Europe ending up in Russia and Poland for a while until the Czar’s pogroms drove them into Poland and Germany which set the stage for the Shoah, the Holocaust.

 

There were other adventures which came from Europe somewhat as a response to Islamic Caliphate advances leading up to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. These were known as the Crusades which were an attempt to retake the Holy Land after the initial fall of Jerusalem in April 637. There were four separate crusades which took separate routes reaching the Holy Lands and gathered the troops from various countries, kingdoms and City-States they passed through and could find willing, or sometimes less than willing, forces to join in their ‘holy’ missions. The Crusader routes and periods of duration (shown below on map) began in 1095 with the First Crusade which continued until 1099. The Second Crusade began in 1147 and lasted until 1149. The Third Crusade was initiated in 1189 going into 1192. The Fourth Crusade began in 1202 and terminated in 1204. They had limited success and resulted in making some groups and individuals very wealthy, so much so that they remained in the Middle East despite having to live under Islamic rule. As far as having a definitive effect on the course of history, it is doubtful and at best might be credited with a residual effect of engaging forces which otherwise could have assisted with the attacks on Constantinople but not on events thereafter.

 

 

Crusader Routes I through IV spanning 1095 through 1289

 

 

The Ottoman Empire final began to weaken while the European powers were feeling the results of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and soon the industrial revolution. While these events were transforming Europe the Ottoman Empire mostly rested on their laurels and stagnated which would cost them as they began to be surpassed by Western technology and discoveries and inventions which led to superior weapons of war. There were three stages of decline for the Ottoman Empire as indicated on the map below. Parts of the Ottoman Empire were held by them for just over a half century, and were under Islamic Caliphate before that for another seven-hundred to almost a thousand years. The final areas of the Ottoman Empire finally fell during World War I and became the Mandate lands from which Iraq, Lebanon, Transjordan (currently Jordan), Syria and Israel were formed. The European colonialists held lands which were formerly under either Ottoman or Caliphate colonial rule for well over a century while the Europeans held these lands for periods of merely a decade or less to the longest being at most a century and those are the exceptions.

 

 

Ottoman Empire in Decline 1800 through 1914 and Start of World War I

 

 

The next map depicts the lands as they were held by European nations after World War I had established their claims in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The area outlined in red depicts the mandate lands decided by the San Remo Conference in 1922. These demarcations were proposed initially by the Allied Powers of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan and Russia. The United States observed the negotiations but was not a direct signatory as the United States desires no holdings, colonial states, mandate responsibilities and was hopeful that they could have assisted in ending this horrific war and had already made their feelings known concerning the restructuring of Europe and the redrawing of boundaries, founding independent states out of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. Eventually the United States was coerced into adding their approval of the Mandate System which many viewed as the most tenuous of the treaties despite the signature of King Faisal signing as the representative for the Arab League.

 

 

Colonial Structure Post World War I defined by Treaties from initial surrender in 1919 through the San Remo Conference setting up the Mandate System in 1922 plus Sykes-Picot redrawing of much of the Middle East

 

 

The final map below depicts the independent states and their dates when their current governments or their freedom from European colonial rule came about. These dates are meaningful as it puts to a lie the claims you will likely hear about how these nations were under colonial rule and only recently gained their independence. There will be other lies which will be half-truths or misinformation by giving one impressions knowing the reality is totally different.

 

 

Dates that the MENA nations received their independence after colonial rule many since the times of the Persians or even earlier

 

 

The actual history which needs to be remembered is that many of these nations have been ruled by outside forces since the very early ages of civilizations while others were once inhabited by a nation which either was destroyed in history or faced a natural disaster which placed their population, that which survived, within another culture where they assimilated and disappeared from history though they often brought skills with them which benefited their host nation which likely made them more welcome. One example of the last occurrence was the Minoan civilization which resided on the Isle of Santorini in the Mediterranean Sea. Everything was going along really great as they had their religion and held their sacrifices, one of which is of interest if you know your Hebrew Bible. The Minoans had a spring ritual which was intended to bring fertility to their crops, their herds, their people and to benefit all parts of their society. In this sacrifice they had to prepare a feast using newly born calf boiled and then roasted and brushed with a preparation made from the calf’s mother’s milk. Anyway, the Minoans were happily fishing and enjoying the wonderful Mediterranean weather until the ground rumbled and the caldera erupted all but destroying the entire Island which has slowly resurfaced in the ensuing years. Santorini is located between the Greek mainland and Cyprus in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea (see picture with map insert below). Santorini is still a dangerous place and potentially threatened with another eruption. Like most volcanoes, it is not a matter of if but of when the next devastating eruption pours forth and erases all traces of human development or existence as the Island may be blown completely apart only to rise from the Mediterranean depths with a whole new look and geography just as it has done throughout all of history. The homes and island is beautiful and a jewel glittering in the Mediterranean Sea and we can only hope it continues to glitter from the lights on the porches of the homes and not from lava belching forth from out of the sea.

 

 

Volcano Thera Caldera Santorini Island Ancient Home of the Minoan Civilization until Eruption just ruined their day

 

 

When we look at the history of MENA nations one need remember that much of the area was also the cradle of civilization and as such had a distressing habit of spawning great civilizations which came, expanded as far as they could reach, overreached or had a number of bad years or the next great civilization either defeated and overran their empire or the two had a merger of sorts as exampled by the Greeks being subsumed by the Roman Empire which did not exactly destroy the four Greek sub-Empires as much as they incorporated as the Greeks saw an advantage of being the center of education and philosophy while the Romans knew of the Greek intellect and their ability to fashion weapons. That is not to say there were not conflicts, but somehow both civilizations influenced each other for the better. But even before Rome, before the Greeks, before the Persians there were the Babylonians, the Israelite Kingdom, the Hittite, the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian Empires. Each ruled and the areas of MENA can be said to have survived as best the individual tribes, city-states, empires, nations and peoples could be expected. There were the Ancient Empires which lasted from prehistory through the Greeks of Alexander. Alexander the Great was the last of the ancient empire builders and his would be the first of the new age empires, the actual colonialists of history. From here many empires claimed to be setting out to conquer the world but they also knew that dream could not be realized in one’s lifetime. Even here the states of MENA faced the Greeks followed by the Romans then the Byzantines as Rome broke into two Empires, the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine; and the western Roman or what became the Holy Roman Empire. Even European nations became colonized as there were the intra-European empires such as the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Charlemagne, Napoleon and eventually the Nazis. After the Byzantine Empire collapsed there was the Caliphate followed by the Ottoman Empire, the two main Islamic Empires. During their time in power there were still the Mongols who came to conquer the world and instead converted to Islam by in large. China and India had their effect on the nations of the Middle East and also set up that area for who could take control of the trade routes. It was because of lack of access to these very trade routes which launched the European age of colonization which is the final or modern stage. Where the age of European conquest began in the late fifteenth century with Columbus and the other explorers heading to lay claim to the new lands in the Americas, then started an age of conquest as the natives were not as advanced when it came to warfare. The one advantage of living in the most contested lands in the world is you build up some formidable weaponry and tactics which the native tribes of the Americas were of no match.

 

The lands which form MENA were already colonized by the Ottomans who had a number of other cultures which also fought with their colonizers as all had a common bond which was Islam. This made these lands too much of a threat plus the Europeans had learned to have a healthy respect for the Ottomans and the followers of Islam through the Crusades and the wars which were barely able to constrain the Ottomans from sweeping across Europe. Much of that was due to the King of Poland and Lithuania John III Sobieski who came and relieved the city of Vienna from the Ottoman siege and brought that offensive to a conclusive end. Still, there was little attempt until into the nineteenth century before any assaults were waged on a by then weakened and almost backward sclerotic empire. Taking fair stock on the years of actual colonialization we see that the MENA nations, of which Syria is no exception except like Israel there was an Assyrian Empire which did not extend to anywhere near as vast an area as the more well-known colonizing empires, otherwise Syria has been a colony of somebody for a very long time. The ancient Empires spanned a good three-thousand years or more depending on sources. The middle empires which include the Roman, Byzantine, the Caliphate and the Ottoman Empires lasted almost two-thousand years. The final age was the European age of colonization of the MENA area which lasted less than two hundred years and when we speak of the Middle East itself it is even shorter barely making a century with Syria being far less and Iran almost untouched by the European colonizers. So, when the news reports tell of how these poor nations have been colonies for near an inestimable time and have not tasted freedom until only the most recent of times and even then most were brutal dictatorships, there is some truth. The problem is for the vast majority we were talking of Biblical era and pre Biblical times all the way through the Greeks and to the Roman Empire after the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire these lands were ruled by Muslims for the majority of the modern ages.

 

 

Mandate of San Remo for French and British including actual treaty demarcations for each nation

 

 

The Europeans only poured in at the end of the Ottoman Empire as it fell with the final areas which included Syria not falling until World War I thus not becoming a colony of the Europeans until around 1920 and with the areas of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel they were not colonies as much as protectorates being held secure from invasions by the British and the French starting in 1922 with the enactment of the San Remo Conference. The above map shows the League of Nations proposed British and French Mandates with the demarcations for Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan and Israel. This mandate was carved from the remains of the Ottoman Empire where the nation of Turkey was what would remain as the originator of the entire Ottoman Empire while these areas above plus Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Oman were brought into being and Saudi Arabia gained complete and uncontested control over Mecca and Medina. These maps and dates should arm those wishing to have the truth behind their arguments readily available to speak to what exactly Europe owes the refugees and victims of colonial rule when in reality it is the Arabian Peninsula, the originator of the Caliphate, and Turkey as the original source for the Ottoman Turks who founded the Ottoman Empire. The Europeans as far as Syria is concerned were a brief caretaker that lasted barely twenty-six years, exactly the same as it did for Israel and Israel has only had to take in over one million Jewish refugees from across the lands that make up MENA as many of them drove their Jews from their lands during the late 1940s and through the 1950s with some from Ethiopia and Russia coming even later and still taking in the Bnei Menashe from India and Israel will continue to take in Jewish refugees from the world over and has also taken in other refugees including but not limited to the Vietnamese boat people and Christians seeking refuge from persecutions. It makes one wonder how many refugees have been taken in by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait (who after the Gulf War which freed them from Saddam Hussein thanked the Palestinian workers for the support which Yasser Arafat lauded on Saddam Hussein and flew every last one back to the Palestinian Occupied areas of Judea and Samaria), Qatar (whose Al-Jazeera news service so gallantly praised and supported the uprisings in the hopes of placing the Muslim Brotherhood in charge of as many nations as possible and almost won Egypt and really urged on the war in Syria until it turned so very ugly) or Bahrain. One might expect these wealthy nations to assist their Arab brothers and sisters but nary a word from them except to demand that Europe do their part because the Europeans had colonies in the area for an average of fifty years compared to the one thousand year rule of Islam as the Caliphate and the Ottoman Empires. Europe should offer to take in refugees one for every twenty that the nations of the Arabian Peninsula give refuge to, that would be fair and proportional but don’t hold your breath.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

What Does the World Want From Israel?

 

Never before in human history since the Roman dispersion of the Hebrews, largely consisting of the majority remaining tribe of Judah, thus the Judeans, simply the Jews, being sent throughout the Roman Empire, particularly around the far-reaches from the heart near Rome to Jerusalem, has the world been so innately consumed with the daily actions, routine or otherwise, of such a small population sitting on such a thin sliver of land. Then, as now, the reason all the attention was with the intent of destroying the claims of an independent nation for the Jews, Judeans, in the area they believed Hashem had set aside through all of eternity for their inheritance. The fact that the people claiming this particular sliver of land at the east end of the Mediterranean Sea also claim that there is a purpose in life which is above and beyond hedonistic self-gratification and that they have a guide which defines the self-restraints which make for the most egalitarian of societies and for the most productive and healthy lifestyle was considered irrelevant. These people call this guide Torah and they claim that it demands they obey an intricate mixture contained in the six-hundred-thirteen commandments given them by Hashem to guide them to be a light unto all the nations received at Mount Sinai, a nondescript mountain which was not the highest nor most magnificent peak amongst mountains in the region but special in other ways often believed to be beyond understanding, which makes these demands solely of them while there are but the seven laws of the Noahic Code. These people, the Jews, have no desire to force or even entice others to become Jews and even will grant those who desire to convert three opportunities to decide conversion was a less than ideal decision. We ask them to reconsider the first time at the close of the discussion about their desires and reasons they seek to convert and they receive their first actual requirements which include at least two years of classes and testing to assure the new member understands the rituals and requirements for guaranteed inclusion. We offer them an easy and understandable reason for quitting at some midpoint of their education about Judaism and what is required of each Jew or Jewess and they are granted one last opting out at the end of their conversion ordeal immediately before or during their Rabbinic review in which their general knowledge and reasons for converting are questioned and considered by a panel of Rabbis who must decide if their education has been sufficiently absorbed.

 

These items are considered as the Jews having a superiority complex whereby they place themselves as being better than the others and thus resented. The truth is that Torah teaches that we live lives consisting of and presenting a model character and live by the examples of our forefathers and their desires to perfect the individual and through such be a light unto the nations. We are taught to be humble but resolute, to be learned but intuition and feelings are of equal and sometimes superior quality, we are told to set an example yet to refrain from aloofness and ingratitude, to live according to the teachings from within Torah and to be true and faithful to the Torah and to Hashem. Despite the Commandments being spelled out and such that anybody is capable of viewing them, still people claim that the Jews have secretive plans to reach out from the current Israeli lands and expand out and establishing a Greater Israel from which the Jews will rule over the world. This idea was supported by the Czars who went so far as to write a book meant to prove the Jews had such a plan and that the Torah classes where the Rabbis who had spent their lives learning Torah and books written by other Rabbis and compilations of the best of these writings but nothing which instructed Jews to try and rule the planet and corrupt governments. The forgery was titled “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” was written by the Czars and utilized to validate a series of pogroms thus making the writing produced by the Czars was used to murder the Jews, not to place the Jew over other people and was a complete fraud and corruption of all being a good Jew is about.

 

A good Jew is one who is kind and who has developed a mindset of service to mankind. They are to be forever humble and to use life’s day to day interactions outside of studying Torah and supportive writings such as Talmud to learn through studying people and to find where Torah can be used to grant further insight that explains the behavior and how Torah can be used to overcome the confrontations and strife both in an individual life as well as such infecting an entire society. Much of Jewish studies are molded around serving mankind both as a whole of their society and as each individual as an entity in itself. A proper Jew views each individual both as a single drop of water in and of itself striving for perfection and also as member of a group as a clean and supportive role flowing as river through a city which can have either of two competing roles. Such a river could be used by all the residents as a source of drinking water and for irrigation and for any purpose except one. The instance anyone chose to use the river as a method for waste removal, the rest of the people downstream would no longer be able to use the river for drinking and irrigation as the waters had become fouled. There are many rivers in our lives, metaphorically speaking, and one of the most important rivers are the ways in which we interact and treat one another.

 

Here as well such rivers can be refreshing or polluted by each individual and once a river between peoples become tainted and polluted by hatreds, the river is very difficult to make clean again. Hatreds between peoples are strange in that many times they cannot even explain exactly what caused the hatred or their hatred really came from somewhere other than the object of their hate. This is very true when we come to Israel as there are those who hold very strong hatreds towards Israel, and often against Jews as well, despite knowing very little about either or even having any direct knowledge or contact. In our world today it has become a cause celeb to hate Israel and to simply assume that Israel had committed some heinous crimes against many different people for reasons unknown to anyone. If you were to ask people at a demonstration against Israel why they are demonstrating the answers you would get would probably astound anybody with even the slightest knowledge in logic. The most honest would reply that they do not know exactly why the protest was being held. Others would at least know enough to say that it was because of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. What treatment they would likely be unsure or have some really out there explanations of what Israel had done or was currently doing to these Palestinian or even what makes somebody a Palestinian.

 

Some of the more profoundly erroneous reasons are actually accepted in the media and news agencies as well as entire websites and web-communities which have sprouted up repeating these misconceptions which seem to grow out of nowhere. There are those who claim Israel stole the Palestinian’s homelands in a war. Ask which war they will reply the Palestinian Israel war. No such war has ever occurred but that will not slow them down as they will say that Israel stole their land because of some conflict. That one is correct but it would probably surprise them to learn that the war they are referring to is the war by the Arab and Muslim world to eradicate Israel as the Jewish state. Others will claim that Israel forces the Palestinians to remain in camps; some might even claim these are concentration camps. The problem is that there is not a single Palestinian camp within the areas where Israel controls the location with the closest one to being under Israeli control is in Jenin which is located in the center of the city of Jenin which is entirely inhabited by Arabs who claim they are Palestinian for political reasons and not a single Jew resides in Jenin and if one tried to reside there they would be murdered within the first few minutes of their arrival and being identified as a Jew. The Palestinian Authority has complete autonomy over Jenin and any taxes paid are paid to the Palestinian Authority from Jenin and the policing of Jenin is performed by the Palestinian Security Service. All the rest of the Palestinian camps are in areas controlled by their fellow Arabs. There is one attached to the outskirts of Gaza City under Hamas control, there are a number in Jordan, more in Lebanon and there had been a particularly large one in Syria which ISIS destroyed after Bashir Assad had bombed it to oblivion, but none in Israel.

 

Some respondents are bound to claim that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. They would be hard pressed to find out that the Palestinians numbers have increased from under a million in 1949 to around one and a half million at the end of the Six Day War and are currently around five million. At the point this new piece of information is entered into the conversation you might want to ask them if Israel is trying to commit genocide against the Palestinians and many will continue to claim that Israel is indeed attempting to commit genocide against the Palestinians. This is when you ask them if they can define genocide other than to say it is what the Israelis are committing against the Palestinians. The answers you will get will range from absurd to absolutely beyond belief. I doubt but cannot be sure if one somewhere might claim the genocide is not allowing the Palestinians to live, vote, roam freely or other deprivation which are all things which would be criminal if the Palestinians actually had Israeli citizenship. If these acts against the Palestinians are crimes then the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Brazil, Peru, Japan, China, Russia, Germany, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, South Africa and any other nation on earth are also guilt of committing genocide or whatever else one cares to call it. Israel has an Arab population around two-million strong with the largest share being Muslim and most of the rest Christians and a small minority Jewish and this Arab population in Israel is around twenty percent. These Arab Israelis work, live, vote, and have every right every other Israeli enjoys and some even are serving in the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset. There is one restriction placed on the Arab Israelis that is also pressed against other non-Jewish Israelis with the exception of Druze who demanded they also have this right, this responsibility. The one thing that the Arabs are not given that every Jewish citizen is granted is mandatory service in the Israeli army, the IDF. Israelis can choose to do national service instead of serving in the IDF but the Jews and Druze are required to do service and the Arabs are not required. Understand that Arab Israelis can and do serve and serve with distinction in the IDF and many are very brave simply because they face increasingly difficult challenges as their fellow Arabs sometimes will treat them very poorly. That is a sad state of affairs which the Jews in Israel play no part. Contrary to the Apartheid claimants, the Arabs in Israel do vote and everything else they desire doing in Israel.

 

But, Beyond the Cusp, you say that Arab Israelis vote in Israeli elections, but that is code for the Palestinian Arabs cannot vote in Israeli elections, what about that? Well, true and Israelis, especially Israeli Jews are not permitted to vote in Palestinian elections. In Gaza the last elections, and only election since that election in 2007 elected Hamas and they have been ruling over Gaza ever since. That election followed soon after the Gaza Hamas-Palestinian Authority and Fatah War where Hamas won in a coup removing the Palestinian Authority from having any influence. In Judea and Samaria, what many call the West Bank, the Palestinians have an Autonomous Region which includes all of Part A and some of Part B of the three divisions agreed upon in the Oslo Accords while Israel controls Part C. The original Oslo Accords theorized and is based on Part C of these lands would remain with Israel and Part A, where ninety-percent of the Palestinian reside, would remain with the Palestinian State and the debate was supposed to be where the demarcation between Israel and Palestinian State the border would be placed.

 

These disputed lands were liberated from Jordanian illegitimate control in the Six Day War in June of 1967. For the nineteen years that Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria after the Arab initiated war to annihilate the Jews on the founding of Israel they attempted to annex the area and even their allies from that war refused to recognize their action and in the entire world only Britain and Pakistan recognized their annexation. During those nineteen years that Jordan held these lands there was not a single peep about a Palestinian State and they were content that the Jews who had resided in those lands were expelled or murdered after or during that war in 1948-9. It was not until after 1967 when Israel took those lands liberating them after Jordan joined Egypt and Syria in the war they called the war to genocidally drive the Jews into the sea which they lost and Israel gained the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and liberated Gaza which Egypt illegally retained after the 1948-9 War mentioned above. When Israel made peace with Egypt, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula and the Egyptians surrendered any claim to Gaza which Israel granted independence in August of 2005 and Hamas took control a couple of years later and has been launching rockets into Israel at her population centers ever since, and not just right before the Gaza conflicts, as those were caused by numerous reasons, always including increased to intolerable levels of rockets fired into Israel. Israel liberated the Golan Heights in the Six Day War from Syrian control and has annexed them and they will remain Israeli lands for reasons of defense which are more important now since ISIS had taken control of much of Syria just beyond those heights. Israel also liberated Judea and Samaria which were part of the area the Jews inhabited at the time of the Roman dispersion of the Jews after they attempted to gain their independence from Roman conquest for the second time. For the record, the first time the Jews revolted and gained their independence, the Maccabees ruled Israel for almost two years before Rome overwhelmed the small army using a number of Roman Legions; the war was quick but also brutal. The second revolt only removed the roman garrisons for about six months and the Romans showed up with legions again and decided to rid themselves of the Judean problem so they did to the Jews what they did to Carthage, they took the males and sold them as slaves and rowers in their galleys, triremes and other ships and dispersed others around the far reaches of the Empire. Carthage has only been heard of when studying the three wars they had with Rome and also the fete by Hannibal of crossing the Alps with elephants, actually most of his elephants died in that endeavor. The Carthaginians assimilated and were never heard from again. The Jews managed because of Torah, they managed to remain Jews over the next nearly two-thousand years until in 1948, due to decisions and treaties made at the end of World War I, known then as the Big War, when the new lines and nations were being fashioned throughout the central European areas with the breaking-up of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, the Arab nations with the breaking-up of the Ottoman Empire which were delineated in the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the formation of the Jewish State, and Syria and Lebanon in the San Remo Conference Agreement signed by the Arab League in the early part of the 1920s. The agreement allowing for Jordan was signed between the Zionist Congress and the British which left all lands west of the Jordan River as inviolate for the Jewish State backed by the might of the British Empire and the crown. Well, that sure meant a whole lot as the British voted against the formation of Israel when the United Nations discussed the partition of those lands west of the Jordan River when on November 29, 1947 where they recommended in a non-binding resolution, that word non-binding is very important as it meant that if either party to the agreement rejected the agreement then the entire agreement was invalid. The United Nations partition was rejected, but not by the Jews or the Zionist Congress but by the Arab League as they were planning their war in which they would easily defeat “the Jew” and take all the lands. They failed in that venture over the years of 1948-9 as a series of cease fires were arranged as the Arab forces petitioned and the Jews/Israelis gladly took the opportunity for peace. These ceasefires were broken repeatedly by the Arab forces and each time they lost a little more land. Had they continued after the armistice which they did not break until 1967, such great restraint they showed, perhaps Israel would have ended up larger later back in 1948-9 which would have easily added 1950 had it continued further.

 

Let’s get back to our discussing of the Palestinians not being permitted to vote in Israeli elections. That charge is quite true but then again Israel does not allow Egyptians or the French or the Japanese or a myriad of others to vote in their elections and why should they. The Palestinians vote in the Palestinian elections which have been held at irregular periods with the last election for Chairman of the Palestinian Authority being held in 2005 and put off when it came up again in 2009 and again in 2012 or 2013. Parliamentary elections were last held in 2006 and been suspended since and some of those elected in that election have been removed by edict from Mahmoud Abbas after the Hamas revolt in Gaza. So, Palestinian living in Gaza would vote in Gaza and did once electing Hamas and no further elections have been deemed necessary and Israel is powerless to force election in Gaza and why would they? Palestinian Authority last held elections in 2006 and in 2005 for the top position which changes names depending on the day of the week and the color of the wall covering of the room Mahmoud Abbas finds himself, sometimes Chairman of the Palestinian Authority or Chairman of Fatah and even Chairman of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization which remains a terrorist organization in many places), others Prime Minister of Palestine, and President of Palestinian Territories and your guess is as good as mine and I presume we will just have to wait and see. The Israeli Arab/Palestinian/Gazan again who knows conflict, which would be best given the name of the conflict by all and any means of destroying the Jewish state by the concerted efforts of leftist, Arabists, Islamists, radicals, and the useful masses (Stalin had a different and more descriptive name for these peoples) through any and every means possible including Roger Waters petitioning every and all rock and music artists to not perform in the Zionist Entity (that’s Israel or home of the Jews to the rest of us) and collective hate speech reserved for Israel and the Jews of the Middle East (which means Israel as almost all have been chased from almost every Arab nation) because we all have agreed to claim terrible things which remain unproven because most of them are truly ludicrous when examined critically because we do not know any better and have never investigated a single concept that we claim to be the reason Israel is evil conflict. Kind of hard to get your arms around isn’t it. You want to understand the Jewish love for that small sliver of land which is really small as the maps below show, read your Old Testament of the Bible and our attachment becomes more clear and then read about the Holocaust, the Inquisition, the pogroms across the lands where the Jews resided or the real history behind the Yellow Star the Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis centuries after any number of Arab and Muslim rulers forced the Jews to wear particular colors denoting them for scorn and persecution and the European cruelties and other indignities even including the mob burning of a Synagogue in New York in the 1800s and the edict barring the ownership of lands by Jews and their expulsion after the Civil War in the area controlled by General Grant which included all of Tennessee, Kentucky and much of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. His order was finally rescinded after Washington D. C. was finally informed and sent a rider back with the order but in that ensuing close to two months the deed had been done and most of the Jews lost their lands, possessions and were relegated to begging and fleeing the persecution in the United States so there are few if any nations free of guilt against the Jew.

 

Four Maps of Great Britain, the United States, Australia, and India with to scale map of Israel super-imposed for comparison on each map depicting her actual rather than perceived size.

 

 

Beyond the Cusp