A Bit about the Burqa and a bit of history too

[holyland]

I might as well.  Just bring up the subject of the burqa because I have been asked so many questions about it.  "Where's the burqa?"  I was asked this on landing.  "In the suitcase," I answered.

No, you do not have to wear a burqa, while in Palestine.  Maybe 5 to 10% of the women there were them, while maybe another half of them, where the hijab.  For the unveiled, the burqa is the full regalia, where women cover themselves from head to toe, some even sporting gloves on a hot summer day.  The hijab is just a scarf that covers the hair, actually not a bad idea given the dust in the air there.  And a lot wear bluejeans with hijab.

Now I want to talk about personal experience with the burqa.  Years ago in DC at a demonstration I wore one.  You may wonder why.  Well, supposedly it was to express our solidarity with Muslim women.  But actually, by hiding in this thing I was able to check out the ex-girlfriend of an ex-boyfriend without being observed doing this.

So, if you were given to spying on others this might be the way to go.  Of course, the subtlety might be lost Wal-Mart in Kansas City but it could work in Detroit.

Enough about the burqa.  One thing I noticed when I was in Palestine was the absence of Hollyweird's influence.  What people refer to as American culture is actually  Hollywood, which has very little to do with American culture, which as far as I can tell has just about disappeared.  But all the violence and the hyper sex and all the political correctness is absent there.  It has the feeling slower, much gentler culture.  That isn't to say that it's flawless.  But Palestine has been pretty much outside world, of the 20th century.

One of the things that I enjoy when I was there was the call to prayer.  You hear it 5 times daily streets, and it's just this very deep sonorous sound coming out of the sky.  The one I particularly loved was the one at 4 AM when the world was absolutely quiet.  Of course, I didn't understand what they say but I do understand it's a poetic and that those muezins who give the call to prayer are appreciated as artists, as well as spiritual leaders.  Many of the channels on TV there feature both call to prayer and music celebrating the beauty of nature, which I think is fascinating, considering that nature the Middle East is pretty harsh.

When I was in Palestine, I bought a book called Palestine, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow by a Dr. Tareq Suwaiden.

I got the book because I wanted to learn something about Palestine and Zionism that predates the 20th century.

But before I talk about this book, I want to mention something about distorted history of the recent past.  Remember Arafat?  Well, was he poisoned?

The Palestinians have always contended that he was.  If you remember at the end of his life he seemed  to have a disease like a palsy, or possibly Parkinson's disease, or perhaps he was poisoned.  It turns out, I learned from this book, that his wife Suha sealed the records from the French hospital in which Arafat died.  Now that tells me that she wanted to live out her natural life span.

While Arafat was still nominally, leader of the Palestinian people  he had started to arrest members of Hamas for Israel.  And yet despite this is palace, the Muka'ata, was completely demolished by an Israeli missile attack.  I was there in 2005, and you can see pictures of this on my website, http://www.holylandunveiled.com.

I mentioned in one of my radio interviews that Israel killed some   members of Hamas' top leadership in the early years of intifada.

So there you go.  It doesn't matter who's in charge.  Israel is just simply going to make it impossible for the Palestinians to govern themselves.  Israelis also destroyed several hundred police stations and then, when Hamas got elected, they fired the entire government of the Palestinians.

And again we don't hear this.  I mean, how Palestinians destroy the government buildings in Tel Aviv?  Have they assassinated any Israeli leaders?  Have they fired members of the Israeli government?  No, of course not

               Back to the Past

Zionism did not start with Theodore Herzl.  Actually it started with the Old Testament but I'm not going to go that far back.  Instead I'm going to start arbitrarily with 16 century.

In the year 1516, Selim II passed a law prohibiting Jews were going to Palestine or the Sinai because so many had been moving into those areas.  And of course the Muslims know, the Old Testament, and the Torah, and the Jews' millenia long idea of conquering Palestine.  This law prohibited them from living in Palestine, but it did allow live in different parts of the Ottoman Empire.

And now we come to the year 1665 when a Turkish Jew named Shabtai Levi organized a movement, whose main purpose was to demand the right of return of Jews to Palestine.  He organized rallies, and this was back in the 17th century.  He also encouraged his car religionists outwardly practice as Muslims, while retaining the Jewish religion.  And the same advice was offered to Spanish Jews by Sephardic rabbi.  So that's an interesting correspondence.

The Turkish Jews, who pretended to be Muslims, were known as Donmeh, or Sabateans, or Frankists.  They had a lot of support from wealthy Jews, and they worked her way up into the Ottoman government and into administrative positions.

In Europe at the same time the break from the Church of Rome was initiated by Martin Luther.  He was encouraged in his movement by the Jews who were anxious to create and cultivate any possible schisms in Christendom.  Interestingly enough, Martin Luther later broke the Jews and became very critical of them.

Meanwhile , there were other Protestant movements being fommented.  One of these was Calvinism, which influenced Presbyterianism and  Puritanism.  This religion was started by someone we have always known as John Calvin but whose name really was Cohen.  

The Jewish influence on Christianity at this time had two goals.  The first was to reintroduce or to introduce the Old Testament into Christianity, which previously had been based on the New Testament.  Secondly it was to promulgate the idea of "the return of the Jews to Palestine"  and to get Christians to support this.  This later morphed into "Judeo Christianity"  and Christian Zionism.

Now let's move to the French Revolution.  A lot has been said about the Jewish and/or Masonic influences behind this event, but I don't want to talk about that now.  What I do want to mention is that at the time of the French Revolution, laws were passed guaranteeing Jews the same rights as other European citizens.  It was at that time the Jews entered politics and media in Europe and one he became president of France.  Interestingly enough, today's president of France is Jewish.  And of course, it sheds a different light on the claim that Jews have made about the relentless anti-Semitism of Christian society.

On to Napolean.  He was the first Western leader to back the Zionists.  On April 4, 1799 during the siege of Acre, Napoleon issued a communique in which he invited the Jews to return to Palestine.  He did this to get the financial support of the Jews.  This long predated the Balfour Declaration that was written in 1917 by more than a century.

In the early 19th century, the khedive of Egypt was trying to undermine the power of the Ottoman Sultan and gain political influence in Palestine.  In this effort, he got some support from the Jews and Christians living in Palestine at the time.  Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire, and this was a bit of an internal power struggle.

Meanwhile back in Britain, something highly important was taking place.  And I'm reading from this book: "... was taking place in Great Britain, where an officer at the Palace of Queen Victoria, Sir Moses Montefiore, established a friendly relationship with a Jewish businessmen named Rothschild, whose financial power is still a major force today.  Through the marriage of convenience between Rothschild's daughter and Montefiore an alliance was forged between government and capital."  An alliance which still seems to be going strong.

Again I quote, "in the year 1828, the so-called Moses Montefiore project came to light with the aid of the government and the French Republic, the British officer managed to put pressure on the Ottomans until they passed a law allowing Jews to settle set up workshops in Palestine."

And later "Moses Montefiore reached an agreement with Zionist leaders in England, Italy, Romania, Morocco and Russia to collaborate in drawing up the Zionist project that consisted of converting Palestine into the Jewish homeland."  At the same time, the khedive of Egypt Mohamad Ali Pasha was also pursuing his own power agenda.

In working across the political landscape of both Europe and the Middle East Zionists were carefully putting the pieces in place.

By 1874, the Jews had received constitutional laws in their favor in most of the countries of Europe.  That was the year that Sultan Ahdul Hamid came to power the Ottoman Empire.  And a couple years later, the United States made its first appearance as a young country on the world scene.  And it did so by supporting Zionism when the American ambassador made a plea to the Sultan to reverse his decision about not allowing Jews to settle Palestine.  It should be understood that the Sultan made this decision knowing the Torah, the Talmud, politics of the Donmeh Jews in Turkey and statements of rabbis throughout the ages.  So he knew what they wanted.  Despite that he did allow them to settle in the Ottoman Empire, but not in Palestine.  He said.  "I shall not allow immigrant Jews to settle Palestine, while the Ottoman dynasty still exists."

With his words, he effectively sealed the fate of the Ottoman Empire.

And it just so happens that between the years 1881 to 1914, some 2 1/2 million Jews settled in the Ottoman territories, specifically in Turkey.  

The British occupied Egypt.  In 1882, Rothschilds founded a movement to financially support Zionism.  The Ottoman empire continued to resist Jewish takeover of Palestine, while France and Britain continued to push for it.  And then we had Kemal.

Kamel Ataturk was a Khazarian Jew.  He represented the Turkish Youth Movements and its political arm, The Committee of Union and Progress.  His aim was to put an end to the sultan.  And he succeeded.    In the government of the Ottoman Empire under Kemal there were 3 Jewish ministers and 1 Arab minister, despite the fact that the population was 50% Arab.

He allowed for the "Jewish return"  to Palestine, legally, and he encouraged the building of kibbutzim.

In 1896 Herzel wrote a book entitled Die Judenstat in which he called for the creation of the Jewish state, in either Palestine or Argentina!  So much for the religious attachment to the land of Palestine.

It was also in these years that the Zionist World Organization and the Jewish National Fund were founded.

In 1897.  The first Zionist was convened in Basle, Switzerland.  The second one was held in 1898.

But the Ottoman Empire still stood in the way of Zionism.  Now, of course, they had gotten Ataturk into power there, but in 1905, the colonial powers had a Congress, and I quote:

   "The conclusion was reached that continuity of Islamic demography was the main reason for its strength and    historical victories.  In order to put an end to this continuity, it would be necessary to create a dividing state to    split the Muslim world into, one part Asian, and one part European.  Everything possible should be done to widen    the gulf between the two.  Palestine was finally chosen as the state that would drive a wedge between all the    Muslim countries."

I think this is just a fascinating statement.  What do you see in the Muslim world today?  They are all at each other's throats.  And none or at least very few, have ever actually supported the Palestinians.

Also, if you look at today's world, exactly the same thing is happening to Europe, interestingly enough, with the introduction of massive Muslim immigration.  And the same thing is happening to the the United States, with massive Mexican immigration.  Demographic continuity is again being destroyed.

So my conclusion is that the lead up to the state of Israel is a lot more complicated than just the British writing of the Balfour Declaration.  The French were involved; the Americans were becoming involved; Egyptians were manipulated; and the Turks were completely co-opted.  The Ottoman Empire had to be destroyed, according to the Zionists, because they resisted the takeover.  Zionist Jews worked hand-in-and with Bolshevik Jews who were busy taking over Russia.

From another source.  I later found out that NM Rothschild and sons funded the Suez canal, and also, Vikkers, the largest armaments manufacturer of its day.  In addition, they kept in touch with Benjamin Disraeli, and Egypt.

I'm sure you have heard some of these facts, but there are interesting and telling details that fill in the blanks.  It is another look at the convoluted and lengthy story behind the real history of the 20th century.

[superzebra]

holyland?
are u arab?
u know some details that knows only to arabs.

[holyland]

No I am not an Arab.  I am an American female, white, middle aged and once worked in Washington, DC with groups on the "Middle East issue".  I came to realize how slanted these liberal groups were on the subject of Palestine and for that matter the entire "Middle East issue."  I traveled there, worked for an online Palestinian journal and did my own research and investigation and so wrote two books, both availabe on my site, http://www.holylandunveiled.com along with other stories and lots of photos.  In addition, there are webcasts and interviews available including one with Ognir.

So there you go.