RUTHFULLY YOURS

One December day in 1939, Frank Nugent, a film critic for the New York Times, took his seat at the premiere of Gone with the Wind and waited for the carnage to unfold. So long and overblown had the movie’s ad campaign been that Nugent was sure it was going to be a turkey. When that proved not to be the case, he was stunned. “We cannot get over the shock of not being disappointed,” he wrote in his review the next day.

In truth, Gone with the Wind had come perilously close to being just the kind of disaster Nugent had foreseen. Three weeks into shooting, the producers shut down production, fired the director, and hired Ben Hecht to rewrite the script. Hecht was known as the “Shakespeare of Hollywood,” for his ability to knock out clever, crowd-pleasing work in the time it takes most writers to sharpen their pencils. But this was a tall order even for him: he’d never read Margaret Mitchell’s novel and had just seven days to dismantle and rebuild an epic blockbuster. The fact that he did it—fueled, so he claimed, by nothing but bananas and salted peanuts—might seem evidence of his remarkable talent. Hecht himself cited it as proof of the rank absurdity of Hollywood. Despite authoring dozens of successful films and earning six Oscar nominations, he dismissed Hollywood as a “marzipan kingdom” populated by idiots, responsible for an “eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.”
Hecht gave that lacerating verdict in his autobiography, A Child of the Century (1953), listed by Time in 2011 as one of the hundred best works of nonfiction published since the magazine’s founding in 1923. Written in the rambunctiously opinionated style of Hecht’s hero, H. L. Mencken, the book deals with Hecht’s eclectic life as a literary critic, novelist, and playwright. He was intimidatingly prolific, and always provocative. His second novel, Fantazius Mal­lare (1922) landed him in court on an obscenity charge; a later novel, A Jew in Love (1931) had him labeled as a self-hating Jew. Hecht shrugged off the controversies; bigger strife lay ahead.

As his career in Manhattan and Hollywood climbed to new heights of critical and commercial success, he suddenly swerved onto an entirely unexpected path: revisionist Zionism. During World War II, Hecht sabotaged his Hollywood career by castigating the U.S. and its citizens for failing to stop the Holocaust.

It was 1939, the climax of the so-called golden age of Hollywood. In addition to Gone with the Wind, cinema audiences that year were treated to The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, and Wuthering Heights, the latter two of which Hecht also wrote. But as Hollywood cheered its successes, safe in its bubble of unreality, Hecht’s restless gaze switched to Europe and the increasingly frequent and horrific reports of Jewish persecution. The desperate situation stirred in him a sense of belonging and duty to his fellow Jews that he’d never felt before. So, Hecht did what he always did when something got under his skin: he sat himself down and picked up his pen.

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Much to celebrate, despite all the distortions and lies and misrepresentations about its meaning and significance ever since.

A mere sixty-seven words helped alter the course of history. A century years ago this past week, November 2, 1917, the Balfour Declaration was issued, declaring British support for the establishment within the then-Ottoman Empire territory of Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

The British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James, Lord Balfour, sent the following communication to Walter, Lord Rothschild, one of the most prominent Jews in England, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland:

His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The Balfour Declaration was the first step on the political road to reversing two millennia of Jewish statelessness and exile which had resulted in the Jews being the most dispersed and persecuted minority in history.

The British commitment did not envisage Jewish statehood in all or indeed any part of Palestine, a sparsely populated, backwater district of the soon-to-be dismembered Ottoman Empire, even though some such prospect was in the fullness of time anticipated by its proponents, especially Balfour and also the Prime Minister, David Lloyd-George. Supporters of Zionism, like South Africa’s Jan Smuts, believed as early as 1918 that a heterogeneous population like Palestine (512,000 Muslims, 66,000 Jews and 61,000 Christians at the time of the Balfour Declaration — the Jewish population had dropped by about a third due to Ottoman depredations during the War) required something other than outright autonomy, with its minorities thrown on the mercy of the majority. (Similar thinking with regard to Lebanon, with its large, multi-confessional Christian population, was also prevalent at the time.)

The Declaration resulted in the subsequent, post-war British Mandate over the territory being dedicated to the upbuilding of the Jewish national home. Even though the British later reneged on this commitment in a bid to appease the Arabs on the eve of the Second World War by drastically curtailing Jewish immigration and land purchases, the state of Israel did eventually arise when the Mandate was terminated in May 1948.

Accordingly, Israel was not anyone’s gift to the Jews. The Jews of Palestine sacrificed scarce blood and treasure to obtain and preserve their independence from five invading Arab armies and internal Palestinian Arab militias led by the war-time Nazi collaborator, Haj Amin el Husseini. One percent of Israel’s population was killed defending Israel from the invasion which all Arabs belligerents declared would result in the destruction of Israel and the massacre of all its Jews.

Nice feel good column, but Israel is equally successful in appeasing terrorists : Exhibit A: The Oslo Surrender and the infamous handshake between Israel’s Prime Minister Rabin and arch terrorist Arafat. Exhibit B: Surrendering Gaza to Hamas which is used as a terrorist have for jihad against Israel. Exhibit C: Negotiating with Mahmoud Abbas who is a clone of Arafat in a suit and flogging a process that will leave Israel defenseless…..rsk

After the recent Islamic terrorist vehicular attack in Lower Manhattan, people ask me as an Israeli: “what is Israel’s secret to living daily with Palestinian Arab terrorism and the country’s ability to prosper in spite of it?”

The answer is: Israel’s secret weapon is the Israeli civilians who feel responsible for each other and therefore are willing to sacrifice themselves fighting and defeating terror to save others. The Israeli public does not hide or run away from the terrorists to save themselves, but rather confronts the terrorists in an effort to save their fellow citizens. From airline hijackings, suicide bombings, stabbings, shootings, and vehicle attacks, Israel has seen them all and has adapted accordingly

While other countries in the West rely solely or mostly on the police and security services to stop terrorists, in Israel the public is a full, independent partner in the fight. Thirty percent of terrorist attacks have been thwarted by civilians in Israel, who fight back by striking the terrorists with everything they had such as a pizza tray, an umbrella, a selfie stick, a guitar, chairs, pepper spray, and guns. While in England the police want the schoolkids to be taught the message of “hide, run, tell,” a child growing up in Israel, is encouraged always to think what will he do proactively if he or she were facing a terrorist.

The most popular YouTube videos posted online are those that show the heroic actions of citizens fighting back or impeding a terrorist. Family, friends, and society applaud, admire, and approve of such actions to defeat terrorism in order to survive, and those people are treated as heroes.

As the most persecuted people in history, Jews have a large amount of experience of living under threats to their very existence as a people and surviving therm. The Israelis have used these experiences to chart a new path and develop a new mental strength and determination that “never again” will Jews timidly be led like a sheep to the slaughter. One of the most popular Hebrew expressions which echoes daily in each Israeli’s mind is: “Ain Brera” which means “there is no other alternative.” In other words, the Jews in Israel will fight for their survival with their backs to the wall or to the sea and with any means available and as long as it takes. After 2000 years of being the “wandering Jew,” fleeing persecutions to other places is not an alternative. Israelis are in their own state with their own army and they will fight and as live a normal life at the same time. There is the realization among the citizens that after having others decide out future, we at last control our own destiny in our homeland and are willing to sacrifice ourselves to protect this home.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders are strongly opposed to Mahmoud Abbas’s political agenda and even see him as a collaborator with Israel.

Leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad announced at a rally on November 2 that they are determined to stick to their weapons “until the liberation of all of Palestine” — or, in other words, until the total destruction of Israel and the elimination of Jews.

When Zahar says that only a “crazy person” thinks he can disarm Hamas and other armed groups in the Gaza Strip, he is clearly referring to Abbas. Zahar’s statement should be seen as a direct threat to Abbas.

Abbas continues to tell the world that he is working to achieve a peaceful settlement with Israel. But will he be able to continue saying such things after he joins forces with his new partners in Hamas and Islamic Jihad? The answer is simple and clear: No.

As Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas are moving forward towards implementing their “reconciliation” agreement, we are already getting an idea of what this new partnership is going to look like.

Abbas is trying to sell the agreement to the world as a deal that enables him and his Palestinian Authority (PA) to return to the Gaza Strip and assume full control there. He and his PA officials and spokesmen have also been working hard to convince the international community that only good will come out of the “reconciliation” agreement and that Hamas is even headed toward moderation and pragmatism.

However, Abbas and the PA seem to be engaged in yet another bid to deceive and lie to the international community.

Just last week, Israel foiled another plan by Hamas to dig a terror tunnel deep into Israeli territory.

The tunnel was supposed to be used by Hamas to dispatch terrorists into Israel to kill or kidnap as many Jews as possible. The tunnel was a joint Hamas-Islamic Jihad project. The terrorists have been working on the tunnel for some time — before and after the “reconciliation” accord that was reached in Cairo last month.

This means that for Hamas and Islamic Jihad it is business as usual — “reconciliation” or not, they are determined to continue their jihad to destroy Israel. The two terror groups may allow Abbas and his Palestinian Authority to return to the Gaza Strip, but Hamas and Islamic Jihad will continue to control what goes on under the earth. They will also continue to stick to their weapons in preparation for war against Israel.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the rest of the terror groups operating in the Gaza Strip continue to make it clear as day that they have no intention to disarm as a result of the “reconciliation” agreement. Abbas and the PA are welcome to assume civilian control of the Gaza Strip, but when it comes to security and weapons, Abbas is not entitled to raise this issue at all.

On November 2, Abbas received yet another indication of what awaits him and his Palestinian Authority as a result of the “reconciliation” agreement. Leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad announced that they are determined to stick to their weapons “until the liberation of all of Palestine” — or, in other words, until the total destruction of Israel and the elimination of Jews.

The announcement was made during a rally held by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the town of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip to commemorate two Hamas terrorists who were killed when Israel blew up the tunnel two days earlier.

Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, told the thousands of Palestinians attending the rally: “We will continue to resist the occupier until the liberation of all of Palestine.” He also cautioned “any crazy person against trying to take one rifle from the hands of the resistance.” Zahar sent his “blessings” to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who are preparing around the clock to wage war against Israel. “We are training our sons to dig under the temporary borders so that they can reach the occupied territories [Israel].”

On November 2, 2017, we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. Sent by British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour in a letter to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, it read:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The Importance of the Balfour Declaration for the Jewish People

For the Jews, this meant the British were supporting their dream of reestablishing a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel. At the San Remo Conference in San Remo, Italy in April 1920, the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers delineated the exact boundaries of the countries they had conquered at the end of World War I, and resolved that the Balfour Declaration would be incorporated in The Treaty of Peace with Turkey.

When the League of Nations formally confirmed the Mandate for Palestine in July 24, 1922, this acknowledged a pre-existing historical right of the Jews to the land of Israel that they had never relinquished as former Israeli ambassador Dore Gold noted. The Jewish people had been sovereign in the land for a thousand years until many were driven into exile. When the Muslims invaded Palestine in 634, ending four centuries of conflict between Persia and Rome, Israeli diplomat Yaacov Herzog noted, they found direct descendants of Jews who had lived in the country since the time of Joshua bin Nun, the man who led the Israelites into the Land of Canaan. This means that for 2,000 years Jews and Christians constituted the majority of the indigenous population of Palestine, while the Bedouin’s were the ruling class under the Damascene caliphate.

Arab Response to the Balfour Declaration

The Arabs viewed the Balfour Declaration as a betrayal. The Balfour Declaration did not mention the Arab rights or Arab right to the land, only that the “civil and religious” rights of the inhabitants of Palestine are to be protected.

Reverend James Parkes, a pioneer in the study of antisemitism and the history of the Jewish people, countered that the British “did not ‘give away what belonged to the Arab people;’ for it had already refused to recognize… on historical grounds, that the Arab claim to be exclusive owners of the country was justified.”

Furthermore, the British were quite clear that Palestine was not a state, but the name of a geographical area asserts Eli Hertz. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to select Palestinian Arab representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, they adopted the following resolution: “We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.” There is no mention of the national rights of the Arab people.

Hertz adds that prior to Jews referring to themselves as Israelis in 1948, the term Palestine applied almost entirely to institutions established by Jews: The Jerusalem Post, founded in 1932, was called The Palestine Post; Bank Leumi L’Israel, incorporated in 1902, was called the Anglo Palestine Company until 1948; Israel Electric Corporation, founded in 1923 was initially called The Palestine Electric Company; and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1936, was originally called the Palestine Symphony Orchestra.

Zuhair Mushin, the head of the PLO Military Operations Department, described how the Arabs adopted the ruse of a Palestinian people to destroy the Jewish state: “There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political reasons do we carefully underline our Palestinian identity. For it is of national interest for the Arabs to encourage the existence of the Palestinians against Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity is there only for tactical reasons. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a new expedient to continue the fight against Zionism and for Arab unity.”

Yet, the Arabs argued that the British promised Palestine to them, as a result of the correspondence between Sir Arthur Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, and Husain Ibn Ali, the Sharif of Mecca beginning in 1915. In return for leading a revolt against the Turks, the Sharif would receive significant areas of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire.

A “Twice Promised Land?”

Asked whether Palestine was part of this agreement and thus a “twice promised” land, historian Efraim Karsh emphatically said no. “In his correspondence with Sharif Hussein of Mecca, which led to the Great Arab Revolt during World War I, Sir Henry McMahon…specifically excluded Palestine from the prospective Arab empire promised to Hussein. This was acknowledged by the Sharif in their exchanges and also by his son Faisal, the future founding monarch of Iraq, shortly after the war.”

Karsh added, this has not precluded “successive generations of pan-Arabists and their Western champions from charging Britain with a shameless betrayal of its wartime pledge.”

The Arab Revolt?

With regard to the Arab Revolt, Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, the chief British political officer for Palestine, remarked that the “Arabs of Palestine, far from contributing anything towards the ultimate victory [during WWI] actively opposed us and deserve no better treatment than others…”

Philip Graves, The London Times Middle East correspondent who served in the British Army from 1915-1919, declared, “Most annoying to anyone who has served with the British forces or the Sherifian Arab forces in the Palestine campaign…are the pretentions of the Arabs in Palestine to have rendered important services to the Allies…”

“His Majesty’s Government,” British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour wrote a century ago in a 67-word paragraph that changed the course of history, “view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object.”

The 100-year anniversary of the “Balfour Declaration” on Nov. 2, 1917, which paved the way for Israel’s creation, should be a time of unbridled celebration, an occasion to honor the region’s lone democracy and most dynamic economy. Instead, it has also become an opportunity for critics of Israel to relaunch their misguided, often dishonest, attacks that seek to undermine the country’s global legitimacy.

It is, then, important that Israel’s supporters not only celebrate this anniversary proudly but also remind the world of how the Balfour Declaration – enunciated in a letter from Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild, a leading British Jew – came to be, what it represented and what followed in its wake.

Already, Thursday’s anniversary has stoked controversy. British Prime Minister Theresa May said her country should celebrate it “with pride,” invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to London to mark the occasion at a formal dinner and rejected Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ requests that London apologize for the declaration that, he suggests, fueled Palestinian suffering.

On the other hand, British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn – who calls leaders of the Jew-hating terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas his “friends” – turned down an invitation to attend that dinner. At the same time, Gwyneth Daniel, a great-granddaughter of David Lloyd George, Britain’s prime minister at the time of the declaration, calls May’s decision to celebrate “completely outrageous” and plans to protest outside that event.

The anniversary also comes at a time of rising global anti-Semitism as well as mounting attacks on Israel from global bodies and governments, universities and other nonprofits and grassroots movements.

The United Nations and its entities condemn Israel for alleged “crimes against humanity” while ignoring the actual horror perpetrated by Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, Riyadh and many other governments. Meanwhile, public and private bodies ban Israeli products and shun its intellectuals, athletes, entertainers and other citizens.

The rebuilding of the Jewish National Home in Palestine is a project “which merits the sympathy and moral encouragement of everyone,” President Herbert Hoover declared on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration yesterday, in a message addressed to the Zionist Organization of America and made public today by Morris Rothenberg, President of the Zionist Organization.

A similar message lauding the achievements of reconstruction in Palestine as a “tribute to the creative powers of the Jewish people” was received from Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, who pointed out that the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine was close to the wish of President Wilson, who helped write the terms of the Balfour Declaration into the peace treaty.

The messages of President Hoover and Governor Roosevelt were issued in connection with the celebration by the Zionist Organization of the fifteenth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

The message from the President reads as follows:

“On the occasion of your celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which received the unanimous approval of both houses of Congress by the adoption of the Lodge-Fish Resolution in 1922, I wish to express the hope that the ideal of the establishment of the National Jewish

Home in Palestine, as embodied in that Declaration, will continue to prosper for the good of all the people inhabiting the Holy Land.

“I have watched with genuine admiration the steady and unmistakable progress made in the rehabilitation of Palestine which, desolate for centuries, is now renewing its youth and vitality through the enthusiasm, hard work and self-sacrifice of the Jewish pioneers who toil there in a spirit of peace and social justice. It is very gratifying to note that many American Jews, Zionists as well as non-Zionists, have rendered such splendid service to this cause which merits the sympathy and moral encouragement of everyone.”

“Jewish achievement in Palestine since the Balfour Declaration vindicates the high hope which lay behind the sponsorship of the Homeland,” Governor Roosevelt said. “The Jewish development in Palestine since the Balfour Declaration is not only a tribute to the creative powers of the Jewish people but by bringing great advancement into the sacred land has promoted the well-being of all the inhabitants thereof.

“I shall personally watch with deep sympathy the progress of Palestine. I extend to your Organization my sincerest wishes for continued success and achievement.”