ISRAEL SINCE THE FALL OF JERUSALEM
(Includes EARLY "AMERICAN CHRISTIAN ZIONIST" HISTORY ABOUT
RUSSELL, BIBLE STUDENTS AND RUTHERFORD'S WATCHTOWER)
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| Painting by David Roberts depicting Jerusalem's destruction by the Roman army |
Some two thousand
years ago Jews or “the seeds (descendants) of Abraham” were the main dwellers in what is now mostly the modern
nation of Israel and some adjoining area or what the Romans called Palestine and many have also referred to as the Holy Land,
the Promised Land, the Land of Canaan, the Land of Milk and Honey. Here it is mostly called the land, Palestine
or Israel. Besides the Jews in this time period there were also a number of Greeks and some Romans but at
the time extremely few Arabs in the land.
In 66 A.D. there began what is called the Great Revolt (Ha
Mered Ha Gadol) or First Jewish-Roman War which would end in 73 A.D. It was sparked when some Greeks sacrificed pigeons
before the synagogue in Caesarea. Jews reported the blasphemy to Roman authorities who did not intervene. This
and taxation from the Romans sparked protests that the Roman governor at first ignored.
However the
upset Jews attacked Roman citizens and other Jews accused of being Roman sympathisers in Jerusalem. At this point the
Roman army garrison deployed throughout the city to save lives, but the increasing numbers of militant Jewish resisters killed
many of the soldiers and drove the rest out of Jerusalem. Other Jews learned of the success in Jerusalem and supporters
came in from all over the land.
In 66 A.D. Jewish fighters also captured a Roman fortress
called Masada which was on top of a 1300 feet (400 meters) high mountain in the Judean desert. The name
Masada comes from the Hebrew word "Metzuda," meaning fortress.
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| A depiction of Paul before Agrippa and Bernice |
At the time Agrippa II, the Jewish but pro-Roman ruler and his sister
Bernice, before whom the apostle Paul had been tried in 59 A.D., then fled
the city north to the Galilee. Gaius Cestius Gallus marched down from Syria but was not able to recapture Jerusalem.
He marched his army toward the coast to escape back north to Antioch. Near Beth Horon the Jewish army suddenly
ambushed and slaughtered most of his soldiers, although he himself escaped.
The Roman Empire then appointed
the General Vespasian to take an army to recapture the land. In the land his soldiers were joined
with a Roman army headed by his son Titus. Agrippa II added 2,000 foot soldiers, archers and calvarymen to
help. The 60,000 strong army killed thousands of Jews, destroyed many Jewish towns, killed many people.
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| A defaced bust of Nero |
In 68 A.D. the Roman Emperor Nero died and Civil War broke out back at Rome.
When Vespasian and his men learned of it, the soldiers declared that he should become Emperor. He and most
of his army then headed back to Rome, gathering more soldiers from another ally in Syria, while leaving Titus
in command of the war in Palestine or, as the Romans called it, Judea.
Titus learned the Jews in Jerusalem were fighting among themselves, the
factions being those of the Zealots led by John of Gischala and a more militant wing of Zealots called the Sicarii (Dagger
Men) headed by Simon Bar Giora, Menahem ben Jair, and Eleazar ben Ya'ir. So Titus marched his army up
to beseige the city. When Jews outside the city asked to be allowed to enter Jerusalem to observe the Passover, he gladly
let them go in then would not let them back out since he knew they would eat some of the city's dwindling food supplies.
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| Tarpeian Rock today; User: lalupa; click photo for terms, attribution |
Jewish soldiers outside the city were skirmishing against the Roman army
and Titus himself was almost captured once. The Roman army broke through the walls, but the starved Jewish
resisters kept fighting. The Romans captured the Antonia Fort, then attacked and destroyed the Temple. Many
Jews were slain. Some, inluding the Sicarii's Simon Bar Giora and John of Gischala were captured. Bar
Giora was later executed at Rome near the Temple of Jupiter by being drug by a rope around his neck to
the Tarpeian Rock, a 75-feet-high cliff of Capitoline Hill above the Roman Forum, and then flung off.
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| Fort Masada |
The Pharisee branch of Judaism led by Yochanan ben Zakai made peace with
the Romans and survived. Early Jewish Christians, followers of Jesus Christ who formed earliest Christianity
which was at first a branch of Judaism, survived because Simeon of Jerusalem had led them north to the town
of Pella on the western side of the Jordan River much closer to the Sea of Galilee than the Dead Sea, and they had not participated
in the armed conflict against Rome, which the other branches of Judaism also held against them. At
Pella more gave up their purely Jewish practices, instead becoming more "Christian" than Jewish. Those at
Pella who kept following Mosaic Laws, were all the same disowned and judged to be heretics by the other Jews.
One of the leaders of the Sicarii (Dagger Men), Eleazar ben Ya'ir, somehow
escaped the destruction of Jerusalem. He led some of his followers away to high fort called Masada and from there
they sometimes descended to further harass the Romans who, of course, quickly decided to go after them.
In 72 A.D. the Romans laid seige to Masada. The historian Josephus tells that in 66 A.D. Jews in the Sicarii (Dagger Men) branch
of the Zealots had overcame Roman soldiers atop the fort and after Jerusalem fell in 70 A.D. more of them - men, women and
children - fled to Masada from which they went to attack the Romans. The Romans or their Jewish
slaves build a ramp up to its top then a battering ram began to knock down its walls.
The Sicarii set Masada on fire except for food storage rooms. Then to prove they had chosen death
rather than being taken alive to be made slaves, they drew lots and since Judaism is strongly against suicide, they one-by-one killed
one another. Possibly the last surviving person had already been wounded and also died. Two
women with five children had hidden in a cistern and were the only ones found alive. It is a site thought of by modern
Jews much as the Alamo in Texas is by most Americans.
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| Wailing Wall |
It is estimated that some 2.5 million Jews were slain in Palestine
during the war of the Great Revolt, and as said the Romans also led many away as captives to be slaves at Rome and
throughout the Roman Empire. Today Jews go to pray before the huge remaining stones of the "Wailing
Wall" also called the West Wall which originally surrounded the Great Temple built by Herod the Great. Jesus
Christ had foretold that not a stone would remain standing of the Temple, and indeed none are standing although, as said,
a segment of the wall around the fallen, destroyed Temple do stand.
By tradition some Jews fled in or after the destruction of Jerusalem to India
especially settling at Cochin, Kerala, where other Jews who were traders had settled in 562 B.C. Bene Israel,
another group of Jews tell that some 130 years earlier, that is in about 100 B.C. their own community had begun in India after
seven Jewish families were shipwrecked near Alibag south of Mumbai.
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| A Roman bust of the Emperor Hadrian |
In
115-117 A.D. Jews in Lod, Israel, and what are now Libya, Egypt, Cyprus and Kurdistan revolted unsuccessfully.
In 131 A.D. Emperor Hadrian forbade Jews from living in Jerusalem but they were in other parts of the land.
In 132-136 A.D. Simon (or Shimon) Bar Kokhba led another revolt for independence.
It was only successful those few years, and since Christians did not participate in it from then on Jews regarded
Christians as not a reform branch but a separate religion.
Until the Bar-Kochba revolt possibly
2/3 of people in the Gallilee area and 1/3 of people along the coast were Jews. Great persecution arose and the Roman
Empire’s economy caused problems in the 200’s so that many Jews left the land for the Empire of Persia (Iran)
within which there was a prosperous community of Jews in and around Babylon.
During the 300s the Roman Empire split into the Western Empire with Rome as its capital
and the Eastern Empire with Byzantium or Constantinople as capital. Christianity, a vastly changed form of Judaism or
member of the “Abrahamic Family,” became the official religion. Jerusalem became a Christian city.
Jews could not live there but could visit it.
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| Modern Samaritan with Samaritan Torah |
In 351-352 Jews in the land revolted against a corrupt
governor. The last non-Christian Roman Emperor called Julian the Apostate said in 362 A.D. that he would
rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem but died while in war against Persia. During the 400s many Christians moved from the Western
Roman Empire back into the land, becoming the majority while Jews numbered only 10-15% of the population. Only Christians and Jews could in the land, but Jews were not allowed to construct buildings,
own slaves or hold office. Samaritans, also part of the Abrahamic Family revolted
twice. Samaritans still exist today. Records
of the Pashtun people in Afghanistan say that in the 600s people called Bani Israel of the tribe of Joseph settled southeast
of Herat, Afghanistan then also migrated south and east. DNA studies have confirm the Jewish ancestry of
the Pashtuns as well as many Iranians (Persians). In 611 Persia (Iran) invaded the Byzantine Empire and its king captured Jerusalem in 614 A.D.
with help from Jews, possibly including from Jewish Himyarite Kingdom in Yemen. Jews governed Jerusalem
until 617 A.D. when Persians took full control.
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| Coin depicting Dagobert I |
In 629 A.D. King Dagobert I of the Franks banished Jews from the
kingdom of Merovingian. His kingdom covered a large part of what are now France and Germany.
Byzantine Emperor Heraclius promised
Jews that if they helped him defeat the Persians then he would restore their rights but instead ,after re-conquering the land,
he banned Judaism from the Empire. Jews fled north to the Khazar kingdom in Europe largely where the Ukraine
and southern Russia are. It was a buffer between Byzantium and the Arab Muslims, and there they converted
the royal family and others to Judaism.
Muslim Arabs conquered
Palestine in 634-636 A.D. and they ended Byzantium’s ban against Jews living in Jerusalem, but they stayed much fewer
in number than the number of Jews there. In fact the number of Arabs in the land would not become a bare
majority until about 1400 A.D.
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| Chinese Jews |
Documents show that in the 700s-800s
A.D. Jews settled in China. Some may also have arrived there as early as 231 B.C. Records
show that a Jewish community began in Kaifeng from around 1127 B.C., possibly migrating there from Central Asia from India
and perhaps also a Persian connection. They gradually intermarried and lost some of their Jewish culture
but in recent times have revived these and some have migrated to Israel.
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| Askenazi in eastern Europe |
By about 1000 A.D. Jews were well-established in West Europe.
Many entered England in 1066 A.D. when it was conquered by the Norman French. By about 1100 A.D. many had also
settled in areas of the Rhine River which flows for example along what are now Holland, France and Germany.
The name for this part of Europe from the Rhineland to Alsace is called Ashkenaz in medieval Hebrew and in particular referred
to Germany. So Jews of Ashkenaz were largely Jews in German, that is "German Jews." They and later on
Jews who moved on to settle in eastern and central Europe were also called Ashkenazim or Askenazi Jews. On the
other hand Jews of the Mediterranean area of Europe (Spain, Italy etc) are called Sephardic Jews. The word Mizrahi
is used for Jews from the Middle East.
Many Jews, both Askenazi and Sephardic, made their living in businesses,
being shop owners, bankers etc. This was likely because so many could read, write and do math in a time when many
non-Jews could not, the males had better educations than most non-Jews due to Jewish emphasis put on education as scripture
said this was necessary, they had helpful connections with Jewish friends, families and other Jews living in other lands yet
sharing Yiddish (a mixture of German with some Hebrew) so that they could more easily transfer money between nations,
Christians unlike with Jews were restricted from making loans at rates considered too high and yet Christians sometimes
needed the loans and therefore went to Jews for the loans. Economic success sometimes bred much jealousy and ill-will
by those already living where they settled, and, as said, many settled in Germany and later in eastern European lands including
what is now Russia.
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| Goat-herding |
For
centuries all of Palestine’s population, that is the Muslims, Christians and Jews likely numbered no more than 200,000
at any given time, and most people lived in just a few places such as in Jerusalem. Most of the land was
as prophesied in the Bible “desolate,” that is empty of all people. In fact most of the Muslims
in the land did not have fixed roots there then or any other time but rather they wandered into it at times south from Syria
in order to graze herds of sheep and goats, and they dwelt in tents.
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| Crusaders laying seige to Antioch |
During 1099 A.D. through the 1291 A.D. the Roman Catholic Church of western Europe
had crusaders fight Muslim armies in the land in particular to re-establish access by Christians to holy sites. Not only Muslims
but many Jews along the way from Europe on down into Palestine were also slain or sold into slavery by the Crusaders.
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| Statue of Maimonides in Cordoba, Spain: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ |
On Passover in 1135 Moses ben-Maimon or simply Maimonides was
born in Cordoba, Spain. He became the most famous rabbi writer on Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, the Torah (Bible),
medicine and science of all the Jewish scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages. He died on December 12,
1204, was buried in Egypt but possibly reburied later at Tiberias on the western side of the Sea Of Galilee
in Palestine, now Israel. Muslim battles against the
Crusaders and Mongols kept down the economy and population in Palestine. After the Crusades ended Jews
were expelled from England in 1290 and France in 1306. In Spain a long period began during which Jews were
sometimes massacred and discriminated against. In 1492 Spain expelled the Jews and Muslims except for those
who converted to Christianity.
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| Tomas de Torquemada |
Queen Isabella made Tomas de
Torquemada head of the Catholic Inquistion which investigated sometimes by torture and with death those believed to be secretly
still practising Judaism or Islam. Historian Hernando del Pulgar, himself a converso (a convert from Judaism) noted
that Torquemada's uncle Juan de Torquemada said his ancestor Alva Fernandez de Torqauemada had married
a first-generation Jewish convert. Biographer Thomas Hope's book Torquemada claims that Torquemada's
grandmother was a conversa.
Restorationism, the idea that Jews needed restored to a homeland in the Middle
East, that is "the Holy Land," was being advocated in Britain in the 1600s including by some of the Puritans
who strongly believed in it. In the British colonies in America, Increase Mather, John Cotton and others
favored restorationism. In 1808 Ezra Stiles at Yale was a prominent supporter; also, Asa McFarland, a Presbyterian,
taught that the Muslim empire of the Ottoman Turks was about to fall and bring on the Restoration. A man named David Austin
of New Haven spent a fortune building docks and inns from which he planned for Jews to move on to the Holy
Land.
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| Falashas in the 1800s |
In 1624 A.D., Portuguese-supported Ethiopians fought a people whom they
called "Falashas" meaning the Alien Ones or Invaders. Although the Falashas fought to the death,
they were defeated, slaughtered and enslaved. Both before and after 1624 A.D. they called
themselves the Beta Israel and were in fact Ethiopian Jews who went by the Torah. Subjugated,
they would do the best they could to continue as Jews little known to other Jews.
One theory about their origin
as Jews in Ethiopia is that their Jewish ancestors fled Israel to Egypt after destruction of the First Temple in
586 B.C. before going on to Ethiopia. Also possible is that their ancestors were Ethiopian Christians
and or pagans who converted to Judaism long ago. They also descend from from Menelik I of Ethiopia whose
mother was the Queen of Sheba who conceived him or perhaps thought she had conceived him while on a visit with Solomon
in Israel. A fourth theory is that they might be the lost tribe of Dan.
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| Columbus before the Queen of Spain as depicted by Emanuel Gottlieb |
Indeed some have wondered if the famous
explorer Christopher Columbus’ own background may have had secret Jewish ancestry. Further, studies have shown
about 20% of men in modern Spain have inherited patrilineal DNA from Sephardic Jewish ancestors. Called the “Conversos,”
those who had converted were viewed with suspicion by other Christians who thought they might in fact still be secretly practicing
Judaism, which in fact was the case for some. Columbus
himself referred to the fall of Jerusalem as "the destruction of the second house," used the Jewish date of 68 A.D.
instead of 70 A.D., and a note dated 1481 has under it the Hebrew equivalent of 5241. He boasted being related to King
David. Some of his letters were described as written in an “unknown script," perhaps Hebrew, and it is said
that he used a triangular signature similar to inscriptions on gravestones of ancient Jewish cemeteries in Spain and Southern
France.
In any event,
many of the Conversos did indeed go on to settle in North America and South America as well as in Poland, the
Ottoman Empire and Palestine. During 1516-1517 the Ottomans conquered Palestine and it became a province of Syria for
the next 400 years. In 1648-1654 in the Ukraine, Cossacks and Jews fought for liberty against Polish occupation forces at
first successfully but then lost. About 100,000 Jews were slain, causing some to migrate to Palestine.
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| Baruch de Spinoza |
Europe’s “Age Of Enlightenment”
was spearheaded by Baruch de Spinoza, born of a Sephardic Jewish family in Holland. He was later excommunicated
with severe shunning, most likely because, to go with his beliefs of “Enlightenment,” he for example rejected
the idea that God is only for Jews, doubted Mosaic Law came from God or was binding on Jews (or anyone), believed God is the
universe and impersonal, there are no divinely-backed human governments. Yet Spinoza’s modest and
truthful life was such that after he died, Christians in general considered him a saint.
The Age Of Enlightenment also
caused the Haskalah, an Age of Enlightenment among Europe’s Jews in general during the 1700s and 1800s.
The Enlightenment included social and political reformation. The Catholic Church and Russia’s
czars in particular did not welcome the Enlightenment because democracy, that is the empowerment of people in general, meant
that their own powers were cut. Such power sources blamed their social, economic and political woes on
Jews. In 1791, the French Revolution in 1791 led France to give legal
equality and civil rights to Jews for the first time since antiquity. Equal rights for Jews spread across
Europe along with the Napoleonic Empire of France. In 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte captured Pope Pius VII, thus
ending much of the independent political power of the Roman Catholic Church.
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| Russia's "Catherine The Great," originally born in Prussia (now Germany) |
In the 1700s the Czars banned
Jews from Russia and then when the Russian Empire grew it took control of other areas in Eastern Europe with even
larger percentages and numbers of Jews. Previously Russia had been much more tolerant.
Then in
1791 Catherine the Great ordered that Jews must stay within only the most eastern part of Russia in an area of provinces
called the “Pale Of Settlement.” Since the Pale had about 5 million Jews, during the 1800s
most Jews were not in Palestine but within Russia.
Jews highly valued education and
hard work to attain a better life and they also believed in trying to improve and leave the world as a better place than before
they had been born. Russia hoped that by confining them within the Pale, and sometimes forbidding them
from living within certain cities and productive agricultural areas, it might be possible to keep economic benefits away from
them in reserve for Russia’s non-Jewish peoples.
This caused
severe poverty in Russia that, however, simultaneously brought about a great display of traditional Jewish charity work.
Jewish social welfare organizations sprang up to provide clothing, free medical treatment, doweries and household gifts
for poverty-stricken brides, technical education for orphans. Kosher food was provided to Jews who were
conscripted into the Czarist army. Some 14-22% of all Jews in provinces located inside the Pale received
relief assistance due to the wide-spread poverty.
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| Pogrom in 1819 at Frankfurt, Germany, showing Jews being beaten and stabbed |
Out of fear, suspicion, and jealousy,
non-Jews often rose up with violent rioting against Jews in Russia, and such uprisings were called Pogroms. Jews
were also often denied the opportunity to receive advanced educations. However, Jewish communities responded
by providing their own advanced educations taught by rabbis in local synagogues. Although material welfare
was not great in the Pale, many Jews flourish “spiritually” there. The Pale would not be abolished
in Russia until 1917 after which much of the region became part of Poland.
In 1825 Mordecai Manuel Noah, a Jew,
won widespread support from Christians in the United States by promoting a national home for the Jews on Grand Island in New
York which would serve a stepping-stone back to what is now modern Israel. Restorationism also inspired
American missionaries to activity in the Middle East, and in 1838 in Britain Lord Shaftesbury talked the government of the
United Kingdom into establishing a consulate in Jerusalem. The next year, 1839, the Church of Scotland
sent four missionaries to report back about conditions of the Jews in the homeland.
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| Muhammad Ali of Egypt |
In 1834 Muhammad Ali of
Egypt occupied Palestine and killed many Jews but in 1844 they were still the biggest group in Jerusalem although a minority
in the entire land. The U.K. gave full equal rights to Jews in 1856. In 1857 James Finn, the British consul
in Palestine noted "The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that
of a body of population." American writer Mark Twain called it “desolate” in his novel
called The Innocents Abroad.
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| Russell shown when much older on visit to the Mount Of Olives |
About 1870 Charles Taze Russell, his father Joseph who was a Free Mason
and some others began a group to study the Bible and doctrines. They were influenced by
writings of Advent Christians (sometimes also known as Second Adventists); possibly also Christadelphians and the Millerite
"end-of-the-world" prophet, the Baptist William Miller, whose teachings also inspired Ellen White and the Seventh
Day Adventists. In time C.T. Russell would become one of the most notable preachers in the movement known as American
Zionist Christians.
Thus, throughout the 1870s
a great number of Jews fled deadly persecution in Eastern Europe and Russia, returning to Palestine. There,
by applying knowledge and hard labor, they began changing swamps and deserts into more attractive farm land along with new
towns, roads, hospitals, industries etc.
In the United States, Charles Taze Russell was advocating before crowds a return of Jews
to their ancestral homeland. He was spearheadeding a still surviving movement called The Bible Students
who even today preach resurrection by Jesus Christ for 144,000 saints in and a Great Crowd heaven but also all the Great Crowd
of humankind on Earth made into a paradise, that is those Christians, Jews etc who had not grieved God’s Spirit.
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| A Christian church at Jaffa, Israel, one of the world's oldest port cities |
Although Palestine was desolate,
still for Jews it was holy ground and their traditional homeland. In 1870 an agricultural school
called Mikveh was founded near the city of Jaffa. Germany gave Jews full equal rights in 1871.
Various Jewish movements also
started settlements, and the long dead Hebrew language was revived as a spoken language although for many East European Jews
the Yiddish language, a form of German with some Hebrew words, had also long been used.
In 1876 Charles Taze Russell became convinced by preacher Nelson Barber that Christ
would return in 1878. He sold five clothing stores for $300,000 (about $6.2 million in 2011), called Christian leaders
to two meetings in Pittsburgh to accept the 1878 coming of Christ, but at both meetings they rejected his ideas.
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| PETAH TIKVA... Acknowledgement Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peta_Tikwa.jpg |
In 1878 the first modern Jewish settlement, Petah Tikva, was founded in Palestine. By
2011 it had a populatioln of about 211,000. Back in the United States, nobody saw Christ return in 1878, which caused an embarrassed
Nelson Barbour to withdraw his ideas about predicting when the world would end. Charles Taze Russell instead said Christ
had returned but it was then only an invisible return that however in time would be visible or perceived by all of humanity
by major world events including the return of Jews to Palestine.
In the year 1878 William
Eugene Blackstone published the pro-Restoration book Jesus is Coming, which said Jews do not have to convert to Christianity
before or after Christ returns. It was published in Yiddish so that many Jews could read it and it appeared in
a total of 48 languages earthwide. Blackwell noted Ezra 7:13 says Jewish
volunteers returned from exile in Babylon in the First Restoration but many remained behind in Babylon, Egypt etc. However
many scriptures tell of a Second Restoration when none would be left behind. (Isaiah 11:11 etc) The First included only
2 tribes of Israel but other scriptures tell of a restoration with all 12 tribes: Jer 3:18, Eze 36:10, 37:15-22. The
Second would be permanent: Amos 9:15, Eze 34:28, 36:11-12, Isa 49:18, 22, etc. Jewish opposers rejected and killed
Jesus but scriptures predict Jews will later repent, cleanse their hearts and accept Christ. (Zec 12:10-14, Eze
34:23-24, 36:4-29, 37:23-27, Jer 23:3-6) Blackwell also noted Solomon and Herod’s temples did not fit the description
of the great temple at Ezekial chapters 40 to 48 so a third temple will eventually be built. In short what he predicted was convincing.
In 1878 John Nelson Darby got
a 14 point proclamation published at what is called the Niagara Bible Conference, and it stated that we need to look forward
to Christ returning to rule the Earth after the people of Israel are restored to their homeland.
Darby also gave 11 evening lectures in Geneva in 1840 immediately published in French, English, German and Dutch, which
greatly began to promote Restorationism around the globe. In July of 1879 Charles Taze Russell began
publishing Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence today published by Jehovah's Witnesses and
renamed The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom. He became a major speaker in support of Zionism,
Judaism's effort to return to Palestine and become a nation, giving major talks around the United States and other nations. Russell
and the Bible Students, who still teach God is honoring Abraham's promised blessings, are highly regarded in
Israel for what he did and they do to this day, unlike the Watchtower Society which would later be taken over by
rival Joseph Rutherford who founded Jehovah's Witnesses to which Watchtower heads now exclusively apply the blessings
as a "spiritual" Israel.
In July of 1879 Charles Taze
Russell began publishing Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence today published by Jehovah's
Witnesses and renamed The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom. He became a major speaker in
support of Zionism in the United States in particular, but also spoke of it when traveling around the globe. After Russell
died in the early 1900s his successor Joseph Rutherford took to applying scriptures speaking of Israel instead to his
group of Bible Students which he named Jehovah's Witnesses. The non-Watchtower Bible Students and Russell are still
highly regarded in Israel.
In 1886 Charles Taze Russell began publishing a series of Bible study books
called Millennial Dawn but later renames them Studies in the Scriptures.
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| William Henry Conley, not Charles Taze Russell, was Watchtower's first ever President |
In 1881 while William Henry Conley, a steel industrialist-philantropist-banker begins
Zion's Watchtower Tract Society in his home in Pennsylvania, serving as its President serving as its Secretary-Treasurer
while 29-year-old Charles Taze Russell is its Secretary-Treasurer. Conley and his wife Sarah annually observe the
Memorial of the Last Supper and sometimes week-long events in their home which they call Bethel, being in Hebrew the words
Beth (House) [of] and El (God), thus House of God. Conley was also active on the board of managers for the
Christian and Missionary Alliance.
Russell would later become President and main spearhead for the Watchtower organization
from which have sprung the modern groups known as 1. the Bible Students (Dawn Bible Students etc) and also the Watchtower
Bible and Tract Society which heads Jehovah's Witnesses.
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| RISHON LEZION... Acknowledgement: Ori~ at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rischon006.jpg |
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| Assorted samples of oranges |
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The Jewish colony of Rishon LeZion was founded in 1882 on what is now the
central coastal plain of Israel about four miles south of Tel Aviv. For the early Jewish settlers the Jaffa (or
Shamouti) orange, which is sweet and without many seeds, increasingly became the major export to Europe, helping finance
even more colonies.
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| William Eugene Blackstone who called himself "God's Little Errand Boy" |
In 1888 the American Restorationist William Eugene Blackstone and his
daughter traveled to the Holy Land. When they returned he was convinced that a return of the Jewish people to their
ancient homeland was the only way to keep Jewish people from suffering in Russia and other lands. In 1889 William Henry Conley, the founder of the Watchtower Society also funded
and organized the Christian Missionary Alliance mission in Jerusalem. At that time his Pennsylvania-based
home mission or house-church, "Bethel," controled the mission .
In November 24–25, 1890, the American Christian Restorationist William
Blackstone organized the Conference on the Past, Present and Future of Israel at the First Methodist Episcopal Church
in Chicago. Both Jews and Christians attended.
By 1890 Palestine’s population
order from high to low was Muslim Arabs, Christian Arabs, Jews, Greeks, wandering Bedouins, and the Druze
who are a branch of Shia Islam. Most Jews lived in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias. As
more Jews came back to the land they began to number more than the Christian Arabs. Jews moving in were more and more doing
so not just because of land but because believing that due to persecution and history Jews around the world needed their own
independent nation again.
In 1891 William Blackstone lobbied
then U.S. President Benjamin Harrison to help Jews go back to the Middle East. He did this by means of a petition
which 413 prominent Americans had signed. Those who signed included John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Cyrus McCormick,
various Senators, Congressmen, religious leaders of many denominatons, news editors, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme
Court. The petition is known as the Blackstone Memorial.
In 1903, newspapers started publishing sermons by Charles
Taze Russell. They were syndicated worldwide in up to 4,000 newspapers and in time reach some 15
million readers in the United States and Canada. They included topics of interest to Christians, Jews and others.
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| National Water Carrier bringing water from Galilee into the Negev |
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| A young David Ben-Gurion |
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David Grün was born in Poland
on October 16, 1886. He would later take the name David Ben-Gurion and serve as Israel's first Prime Minister during
the 1948 Israel-Arab War. He believed Israel should put great emphasis on developing the Negev Desert and began the
National Water Carrier, a canal that brought water from the Sea of Galilee south into the Negev.
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| Many consider Herzl the "Father of modern Israel" |
In 1896 the Jewish Austro-Hungarian
journalist Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) which said Jews needed to start their own nation.
He may have been influenced by a trial he reported on from France at the end of which a Jewish French army captain
was falsely convicted of being a traitor. It is also possible that he was alarmed at the rise to power
in Vienna of Karl Lueger, an early fore-runner of Adolf Hitler.
In 1897 Herzl began the Zionist Organization in Switzerland, and its stated intention was "to establish a home for
the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law." The British and Germans were helpful.
He tried to get Pope Pius X to offer public support of the ideal but the Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val told him the
Pope could only refuse because “Jews deny the divinity of Christ.” The Sultan of the Ottoman
Empire who controlled the land was a Muslim who opposed there being a Jewish nation even though Herzl offered to have Jews
pay off the foreign debts of the Ottoman Empire. The British offered East Africa to be considered as a
homeland.
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| Golda Meir at age 16 in Milwaukee |
Golda Meir was born May 3, 1898 in
Kiev, Russia named Golda Mabovitch. Her family later moved to the US state of Wisconsin. She
later moved to Denver, Colorado, married Morris Meyerson, and they moved to a kibbutz farm in Palestine. Among
many things she gave talks to raise funds for Israel, became Israel's fourth Prime Minister. Her decisions
before and during the Yom Kippur War were condemned by some at the time but the release of documents show that she actually
save the nation from being overrun and destroyed.
Herzl died from a heart
attack in 1904. A day before dying he told his British friend Reverend William H. Hechler, an Episcopalian, "Greet
Palestine for me. I gave my heart's blood for my people." His last will-and-testimony said that
he should have the poorest-class funeral without any speeches or flowers and that "I wish to be buried in the vault beside
my father, and to lie there till the Jewish people shall take my remains to Palestine.” All the same,
about 6,000 people followed Herzl's hearse.
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| Honor Guard at casket of Herzl in Israel |
Israel remembered Herzl’s
last request and after Israel came out of war with Arabs in 1948, the next year the government removed his body from
Vienna, Austria, and he was reburied upon Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. After Herzl’s death the Zionist
Organization turned down the offer of a homeland in East Africa, determined instead to return to the homeland in Palestine.
As noted earlier, life for Jews within Russia’s
“Pale” region was very harsh as shown also by the fact that from 1881 to 1914 about 2 million Jews were motivated
to move from there to other lands. Many went to the United States but also from 1882 to 1903 some 35,000
went to Palestine.
Between 1904 and 1914,
about 40,000 more Jews settled in Palestine. The Zionist Organisation saw the need in 1908 to establish
the Palestine Bureau or “Eretz Israel Office” in Jaffa. It began a systematic resettlement
of Jews. Most migrants were from Russia which then included what is now Poland.
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| Wild Emmer wheat |
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| Scene at Rosh Pina |
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In 1906 Aaron Aarosohn, an agronomist, discovered self-propagating
wild emmer of the scientific name Triticum dicoccoides at the Rosh Pina settlement founded in 1882 by Romanian Jews in the
Upper Galilee area of what is now northern Israel. It is believed to be the mother of wheat that possibly originated
in southeastern Turkey and carbon-dating as far back as to 17,000 B.C. Its genes enable it to resist stripe
rust, stem rust, powdery mildew, many other diseases and pests. It can also survive in poor soil and under harsh
climate. These traits make it ideal for developing new species of grain to the benefit of mankind.
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| A "moshav" cooperative kibbutz named Nahalal in the Jezreel Valley |
In 1909 Russian socialists
founded the first kibbutz, that is a community centered around farming. In
a kibbutz the whole community owns the farm equipment and income is distributed equally; a “moshav” is similar
but each family keeps its own home and works its own land although the community as a whole does the buying and selling.
Also in 1909 Tel Aviv was established. It was the first city where only
Hebrew was spoken. Hebrew books and newspapers were also published. Political parties
and worker organizations also began. By 2011 Tel Aviv had a population of about 405,000, making it the second most populated
city in Israel. The many improvements and work opportunities drew more Muslim Arabs, and their population
by 1918 was about 560,000. Simultaneously many Jews migrated from Europe and a less number from the United
States. Many had endured severe persecution in Russia’s “Pale.” All had seen the rise
of modern nations such as Italy and Germany during the 1800s. These things gave them the idea that they
too needed a nation.
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| Many African Jews Have Come To Israel From Ethiopia |
In 1908 chief rabbis of 45 countries jointly declared that Ethiopian Jews definitely
are Jewish. This would also be confirmed in 1975 by Israel’s government.
On October 31, 1916 (a Halloween) Charles Taze Russell dies at age 64
aboard a train at Pampa, Texas, that is returning him to Brooklyn, New York, from California.
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| Some of the Jewish Legion before the "Wailing Wall" after helping Britain capture Jerusalem in 1917 |
Jews fought for both sides during
World War I in 1914 to1918. For example, over 100,000 Jews served in Germany’s army. In late 1917 the British
Army composed largely of the Zionist Jewish Legion defeated and expelled Turks of the Ottoman Empire from Palestine.
British foreign minister Lord Balfour sent a letter to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild,
a very wealthy banker, politician and zoologist. Later called the Balfour Declaration of 1917, it told
the Zionist that the British government favored Jews getting to return to Palestine. Also, after the Communist Revolution overthrew the Czar of Russia in 1917, thousands of Russian Jews fled
to China, and some 14,000 would also go there during World War II. In 1917 the Watchtower Society leadership headed by Joseph F. Rutherford published
The Finished Mystery which contained some of what previous President Charles Taze Russell intended to be a seventh Bible
study book but apparently interlaced with silly ideas added to it by Rutherford's writers in order to discredit
Russell while elevating Rutherford.
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| Rehovot, Israel |
In 1921 the Jewish Agency began the
Agricultural Experiment Station at Rehovot, Israel. Grain yields were increased more than eight time greater;
cattle milk increased from a high of 500 kilograms per cow to more than 11,000 in 2005. Citrus
fruit spoilage was cut from 30% to only about 3%. These attainments have benefit all of mankind.
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| The Hauran region north of what is now Israel |
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| Singer-actor Farid al-Atrash and his sister Asmahan originally from Hauran |
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As explained, the number of Arab Muslims was also growing. In 1934 alone between
30,000 and 36,000 Arabs from the Hauran Province in Syria left for Palestine in hopes of having a better life
In 1922 the League of Nations called for the U.K. to work toward having the
mostly empty land of Palestine become a home for both Arabs and Jews. At the time about 11% of the population
was Jewish, the rest mostly Arabic.
|
| the early Maccabiah Games |
In 1932 the first Maccabiah Games were held. They
had been developed by Josef Yekutieli with help from the Jewish National Fund and were for Jews around the world. To
spark interest in the games and receive donations supporters went on motorcycle tours through the Middle East and Europe.
There were about 400 participants competing. The Games later included all Israelis regardless of religion, race or ethnicity. In 1933 "der Fuehrer" (the Leader) of the National Socialist
Party, that is the Nazis, came to power in Germany. Adolf Hitler quickly became a dictator and led Germany
into World War II during which the Holocaust cost the lives of many Jewish men, women and children. Some have asked
if Hitler himself might have been Jewish. The Huffington Post has told that saliva
samples from 39 Hitler relatives had the Haplogroup E1b1b1 chromosone. It is rare in Western Europe
but common in Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews as well as Berbers of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/25/hitler-jewish-dna-tests-s_n_693568.html
Regardless, even if he himself may have had Jewish ancestry, by his use of terrorism and genocide, Adolf
Hitler, who loved himself more than Judaism or Christianity, renounced his heritage in either. Why did he
hate Jewish people so much? Many Jews in pre-Nazi Germany and since not only there but worldwide, due to emphasis on
education have become owners of banks, stock brokerages, iron and other metal businesses. Many have also become doctors,
college professors, movie and entertainment moguls. They were handy internal scapegoats for Hitler.
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| Chaim Azriel Weizmann |
What is now called the Weizmann
Institute of Science was founded in 1934 by Benjamin M. Bloch and Chaim Weizmann. Weizman was an organic
chemist who served as Israel’s first President from 1942 until death in 1952. The institute has a
world class reputation as a research university.
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| Herschel Grynszpan |
Hitler severely oppressed Jews, and on November 7, 1938, a 22-year-old
Jew named Herschel Grynszpan, frustrated including about the fact that his family in Germany was starving, shot the German
diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris three times in the stomach, and vom Rath died on the 9th. This gave Hitler
an excuse for a Kristallnacht (Chrystal Night) pogrom or attack on Jews throughout Germany and parts of Austria, which occurred on
November 9-10.
Nazi storm troopers
destroyed shop windows of Jews, Jews were beaten, tortured, sent to concentration camps, synagogues pillaged and destroyed,
267 set on fire. People in other nations were horrified to hear of Kristallnacht, named for the sound of
shattering glass. It is considered the start of the Holocaust.
During World War II (1939-1945) the number of Arabs greatly increased in Palestine.
In fact by 1942 an estimated 75% of Arabs in Palestine were people whose roots in the land went back only to the 1870s when
Jews had started returning in large numbers. As from early times of the Jews returning en masse in the
late 1800s there were clashes, sometimes bloody.
In the 1930s another 250,000 Jews entered Palestine,
which upset the Arabs who revolted against British control in 1936-1939. Hoping to calm the Arabs the British officially
issued the "White Paper of 1939" which limited the number of Jews who could enter the land.
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| Nazi soldiers rounding up Jewish women and children |
Germany’s Nazi dictator
Adolph Hitler authorized the systematic murder in Nazi territories of about six million Jews, this being a great tribulation
or genocide known as the Holocaust or, in Hebrew, Ha Shoah (The Catastrophe). The extermination program
was mostly conducted by the gassing to death of Jewish men, women and children inside concentration camps such as Auschwitz
in Germany and Treblinka in Poland. Naturally after World War II
ended in 1945, many Jews would move to the United States and Palestine. During the war the family of Annelies Marie (or simply Anne) Frank stayed hidden
in a building in Amsterdam, Holland, but were eventually betrayed and sent to concentration camps. All were murdered
there except for her father Otto who after the war was able to publish a diary that she had written while in hiding.
The Diary of Anne Frank has become world famous. She lived June 12, 1929 to early March 1945.
Because of the Holocaust going on
in Europe, Jewish leaders smuggled more and more refugees into Palestine even though doing so was illegal according
to the British so that by the end of World War II the Jewish population had grown by another 33%. On December 30, 1947 the Jewish militia
Irgun threw bombs at a crowd of Arabs at the gates of an oil refinery company in Haifa, killing six and injuring 42.
The Arabs then killed 39 employees of the company. The Jewish Haganah militia attacked, killed or
injured many of the Arab workers at a nearby village.
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| Haifa is Israel's third largest city |
Responsible Jews tried to stay defensive at first but gradually
went on the offensive. Arabs then had to flee or were driven out. In April
1948 the Jewish Haganah militia attacked Arab irregular forces in Haifa. Arab leaders called for Arab workers
to leave the city to paralyze it economically, and many also left out of fear.
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| This map shows how the U.N. wanted to divide Palestine |
On May 14, 1948, Jewish leaders such as David Ben-Gurion declared the independent
nation of Israel, and the next day Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq attacked causing the 1948 Arab-Israel War which Israel
won. The main export of the new or “restored” nation of Israel remained the
Jaffa Orange, today also grown in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and on Cyprus; however diversification into grapefruits, clementines,
lemons and non-citrus crops expanded.
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| Israel's national emblem with "Menorah" candle-holder in the center |
Because of the 1948 war more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs either fled
what became Israel or were pushed out of it. Jordan took the area called the West Bank, as it is
on the western side of the Jordan River, as well as East Jerusalem. Egypt took the Gaza Strip, a section of land along
the coast which includes the city of Gaza, and in ancient times the same general area had been known as the land of the Philistines
or Philistia. Packed with Arab refugees, in years after 1948 the Gaza Strip would sometimes also be under
control by Israel or various Palestinian Arabic militant groups including eventually during the 2000s the Iranian-backed
Hamas organization.
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| Exhausted Yemeni Jews comforted to fly home "on the wings of eagles" |
In 1947 the U.K. announced that it had tired of trying to deal with
the situation in Palestine where it could not please either the Arabs or the Jews. Both Arabs and Jews were fighting
against the British. Also in 1947 Muslims in the nation of
Yemen killed 82 people and destroyed Jewish homes, and in 1948 Muslims there claimed Jews had murdered two Muslim girls then
looted and destroyed Jews’ stores and businesses. Israel began making plans to rescue the Yemeni Jews.
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| Israel used its own 747s for rescues |
Since the lives of many Jews in Yemen and Africa were in danger, from
June 1949 through September 1950 Israel (with some U.S. help) rescued 47,000 Jews from Yemen, 500 from Djibouti and Eritrea,
Africa, via airplanes in Operation Magic Carpet. Many were scared to get into the airplanes which they
had never seen or rode in before until their rabbi read Exodus 19:4 which says God gathered His people “on wings of
eagles” to Him, and Isaiah 40:31 which says the Lord will renew His people’s strength and they will “soar
on wings like eagles.”
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| World famous physicist Albert Einstein |
The U.N.’s definition for
a "Palestinian Refugee" was any Arab who had been in "Palestine" for as little as two years.
So most Arabs in what is now Israel back in 1948 did not have roots that went back anything close to 2,000 years ago.
Most were quite recent arrivals.
In 1949 Israel explored
the Negev Desert for oil and uranium. Uranium was found locked in phosphate. Israel’s
Prime Minister David Ben Gurion believed Israel must get or make nuclear weapons or another Holocaust would happen.
He noted Einstein, Oppenheimer and Teller had all been Jews who developed such weapons for the US so Jews in Israel
could also do so. Israeli students went overseas to study, one going to study in Chicago under nuclear
scientist Enrico Fermi.
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| Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba has tourist beaches and some surfing remindful of Waikiki, Hawaii |
In 1956 Egypt’s head Gamal Abdel Nasser took control of the Suez Canal and
blocked the Straits of Tiran and Gulf of Aqaba so that Israel’s ships could not go into and leave the Red Sea.
France asked Israel to invade Egypt after which France and Britain would re-capture the canal, claiming they had entered
the war just to protect the canal property and act as peace-makers.
In 1957 Israel held the Macabbein Games, a sports gathering similar
to the Olympics but among Jews in twenty different nations. Abie Grossfeld (United States) won seven gold medals in seven gymnastics events.
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| Nuclear bombs developed after Khrushchev's threat |
Israel agreed to France’s
plan, attacked Egypt and was able to quickly capture the Sinai Desert. However the US and USSR, that is
Russia’s communist empire, ordered an end to the war, and Israel agreed to withdraw especially after the USSR’s
Premier Nikita Khrushchev implied that if Israel didn’t then the USSR would use nuclear weapons against Israel.
Alarmed at what Khrushchev had said,
Israel spoke with the French. Israeli scientists had become experts at uranium extraction, refinement and
production, and they were helping the French with these and other nuclear matters as France built its own nuclear program.
So France then secretly agreed to also help Israel as it tried to build its own nuclear arms at about four miles south of
Dimona in the Negev.
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| Bahai Gardens and Shrine of the Bab in Haifa, Israel |
In 1958 members of the Bahai religion completed the Shrine of the Bab, the
man who head founded their religion, in the city of Haifa. It is internationally famous for its architectural beauty
as well as the lovely Bahai Garden around it. The religion, which began in the 1800s in Iran, is known for promoting
international peace but via the internet its harsh shunning of former members has also become better known.
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| Arafat (1929-2004) |
In 1959 Arabs from Palestine including
Yasser Arafat began the Fatah which would in become the major party of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (the PLO) that
started in 1964 at an Arab League summit in Cairo, Egypt. It intended to re-take control of Palestine from
the Jews including by use of terrorist actions.
Arabs going into the
1960s simply considered the land as “southern Syria.” However Yasser Arafat got Arab people to thinking of the
land as a separate Arab nation even though the dictator Hafez Assad of Syria denounced the idea, still called it part of Syria
and said it needed liberated. He also viewed Lebanon and Jordan as just parts of Syria, lands to someday
all be brought back under Syria’s control. It is believed that during this time the French helped Israel begin
a nuclear plant.
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| Nazi Adolph Eichmann, spearhead of the Holocaust |
On May 11, 1960, agents of the Israeli intelligence service called
the Mossad, captured Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the man most in charge of having millions
of Jews exterminated in Concentration Camp gas chambers during World War II . He was smuggled aboard an
airplane bound to Dakar, Africa, and by May 21 was in Israel. When David Ben-Gurion announced
the capture to Israel's parliament, the Knesset, everybody cheered. Eichmann's trial started April 11, 1961 in Jerusalem.
He said he was only following orders but written depositions from former Nazis still in Germany showed that Eichmann
had in fact been fanatically eager to kill Jews for Hitler and did not have superiors over him. After conviction
he appealed but the appeal was turned down.
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| Ramla |
On May 31, 1962 a little before midnight, Adolf Eichmann was hanged at
a prison in Ramla, Israel, his being the only civil execution so far ever
in Israel. Also in 1962 the US began giving missiles to help Israel defend against threats from its neighbors, and in
later years still more arms came from the US and some European nations In 1962 the US began giving missiles to help Israel defend against threats from its
neighbors, and in later years still more arms came from the US and some European nations.
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| Date palm trees of regular height |
In 1963-65 excavations in Israel brought
to light date palm seeds saved in a jar. The seeds dated to between 155 B.C. to 64 A.D. Israeli scientists put
three into a special growth preparation and one nicknamed Methusaleh was growing and reproducing again in 2008.
Its species was the Judean date palm which had become extinct over 1,800 years ago.
In 1966 production began in Israel of the a new type of highly efficient
water dripper for irrigating crops in the Negev Desert. It had been invented by water engineer Simcha Blass with some
help from his son Yeshayahu. Now the desert could really start to bloom!
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| Syrian families fled the Golan Heights war zone |
In 1967 Egypt threatened to exterminate
Israel. In the ensuing Six Days War, Israel’s air force surprise attacked and destroyed the air forces
of Egypt, Jordan and Syria and then also their armies. Israel took from Egypt the Gaza Strip and Sinai
Peninsula, from Jordan the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and from Syria the Golan Heights. Likely by 1968 Israel had made its own nuclear weapons. The national policy
was to neither comfirm nor deny that Israel had them but the Arab nations had no doubt about it.
In 1970 Israel's national Law Of Return was expanded to say that
not only those with a Jewish mother or maternal grandmother but also those persons with Jewish ancestry such as a
Jewish father or grandfather and their spouses as well as converts to Judaism (Orthodox, Reform, or Conservative) denominations
have the right to return to Israel as their ancestral homeland provided that they do not somehow pose a danger to the welfare
of the nation and also they did not previous renounce being a Jew. Reform and Conservative conversions must take
place outside the state, similar to civil marriages. Their return to Israel automatically gives them citizenship. In 1970 Hal Lindsey and Carole C. Carson wrote The Late Great
Planet Earth that for example used Ezekial 39:6-8 and Zechariah 13:8, 9 to claim that modern Israel will have to fight
off an invasion from Russia. It also said Jews would then convert to Christianity and one-third of them
would be spared from a great fire sent by God upon Russia and people of the coastal regions. Militant Arabs, especially terrorists
with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party within the Palestinian Liberation Organization (the PLO) launched a series of attacks
against Israel and Jewish targets around the world. In 1972 Israeli athletes were massacred at the Summer
Olympics in Munich, Germany.
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| Cherry tomatoes |
In 1973 Israeli scientists Haim Rabinowitch and Nachum Kedar developed
cherry tomatoes. Later, after 12 years of breeding, the Hishtil Nurseries developed the tomaacio tomato. Wild
tomatoes from Peru were bred for this.
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| Israeli F16's |
Egypt wanted back the Sinai so
in 1973 it and Syria surprise attacked Israel in the Yom Kippur War and the Arabs were winning, about to overwhelm Israel.
Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered nuclear bombs attached to Phantom jets to be dropped on Cairo if necessary.
Perhaps due to being informed by American intelligence of the nuclear bombs, the invaders backed
off.
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| Left to right: Sadat, Carter, Begin |
In 1978 the Camp David Accords were signed between
Israel and Egypt, with U.S. President Jimmy Carter helping, and they would lead to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.
Egypt's President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin won the Nobel Peace Prize for progress toward a Middle East peace accord.
Israel defeated the Syrians at the Golan Heights and
then in the south its tanks drove to within about 33 miles of Cairo and captured a huge Egyptian army. The
war then ended. Israel had captured much land and re-captured Jerusalem from the Jordanians but would return
the Sinai to Egypt in 1982. In 1980 Israel’s government allowed the establishment in 1980 of
the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem which seeks worldwide Christian support for Israel. It has raised funds to help
with immigration to Israel from the former Soviet Union, and helped Zionist groups in establishing Jewish settlements in the
West Bank.
Also in 1981 the political far-right Southern Baptist preacher Jerry
Falwell said in the United States "To stand against Israel is to stand against God. We believe that history and scripture
prove that God deals with nations in relation to how they deal with Israel." He and Southern Baptist Pat Robertson have
cited Genesis 27:29 which says of Israel: Those who curse you will be cursed, and those who bless you will be blessed.
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| 3.5 million Marionites are mostly in Lebanon and Syria |
In 1982 over 40,000 Iranian
Jews moved to Israel after the Islamic Revolution. In June 1982 the anti-Israel terrorist group called
the Abu Nidal Organization tried to assassinate Israel’s ambassador to the U.K. Israel then invaded
southern Lebanon and at one point let Phalangists, who were radical Christian Marionites, massacre Muslim Arab
Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. The PLO was destroyed there but this caused the
formation of the even more militant Hezbollah organization meaning Army Of Allah. Its members are mostly
radical Shi’ite Muslims supported by Iran with military supplies and training but also backed by Syria.
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| Smoke rising from the Beirut barracks in 1983 |
In 1983, during the time
of U.S. President Ronald Reagen, barracks housing American soldiers were bombed killing over 200 U.S. Marines in Beirut,
Lebanon. It was done by a group called the Islamic Jihad Organization, in reality a group within the Hezbollah
which praised the killing. The U.S. withdrew its remaining troops to ships anchored off the coast of Lebanon. Then
in 1984 two U.S. battleships fired 300 shells against Druze and Syrian militants before leaving the
area. Iran and Hezbollah considered this a victory against the U.S. In 1984 in the midst of severe famine and civil war some 8,000 Ethiopian Jews called
the Beta Israel were flown to Israel by Israeli Defence Forces with assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
This was called "Operation Moses."
In 1985 "Operation Joshua" flew another 800 Ethiopian Jews to safety
in Israel. Also in 1985 a former Israeli nuclear technician gave details of Israel’s nuclear program to British
journalists. Israel later captured and put him in prison as a traitor. Israel would
neither admit nor deny that it has nuclear weapons. As of 2011 the weapons are said to number from 75 to
400 nuclear warheads and some are also aboard submarines.
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| Terrorist Bin Laden, photo believed taken shortly before death in Pakistan |
Osama Bin Laden and his followers formed Al Qaeda (The
Bridge) to wage war on the US about or in early 1989. They wanted infidel non-Muslim Westerners and Western
influence out of Muslim holy land. To them any Western soldiers in Arabia as well as the existence of Israel
as a Jewish nation were a blasphemy against Allah. Bin Laden had helped Afghans in their
previous successful war to drive Russians out of Afghanistan, which was largely successful after the US military supplied
Bin Laden and the other guerrillas with better weaponry such as shoulder-held missiles to destroy helicopters.
Al Qaeda also wanted to turn all the Earth into a Muslim Qaliphate, that is a Muslim theocracy or religious-based world
government, taught that Israel and the US wanted to destroy Islam.
In the 1990s Israel expanded production of field crops,
vegetables, fruit and dates in the Negev and the Arava desert areas. It also grew more citrus groves in the
northern Negev. However, emphasis shifted even more to growing flowers, grapes for wine, olives for oil,
cattle for meat, ostriches and fish. Also in 1990 the USSR let Jews migrate to Israel. Some 1 million
soon did. Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied oil rich Kuwait causing the US and
Arab allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia to fight to liberate Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War which began August 2, 1990.
George H. Bush was then President of the US.
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| Patriot missle for hitting incoming enemy missiles |
Iraq launched Russian-made
Scud missiles against Allied forces in and around Saudi Arabia as well as Israel. Iraq’s dictator
also hoped to get Israel to make a defensive attack so that the other Arab Allies would turn in sympathy from fighting Iraq,
but US Patriot missiles helped keep Israel safe especially its nuclear facilities at Dimona, Israeli’s entered underground
bunkers and wore gas masks. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was encouraged by the US to show restraint and did.
The war quickly ended with Allied occupation of Iraq and total victory on February 28, 1991. In 1991 during "Operation
Solomon" another 15,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Israel. Israeli firms were
bringing in workers from Asia including China. There was also an increase in illegal immigration including
from Africa. Also in 1991 Yasser Arafat’s PLO agreed to begin negotiating with Israel starting in
Madrid, Spain. In "the Oslo Accords" of 1993, the PLO recognized Israel's right
to exist in peace, and agreed to reject violence and terrorism. In turn Israel officially recognized the
PLO as the representative of the Arabic people in Palestine. Also in 1993 terrorists linked to Al Qaeda
detonated a truck bomb that damaged the underground part of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City and
killed seven people.
In 1994 the PLO formed the “Palestinian Authority,” as the fore-runner
of a possible independent nation for Arabs in Palestine.
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| Left-to-right: Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat |
In 1995 Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister, was assassinated by an Israeli radical
right-winger who was angry that Rabin had signed the Oslo Accords for peace with the PLO in 1993.
In 1996 during "Operation Grapes of Wrath" which lasted nearly a week,
Israeli attacked Lebanon because of past terrorist attacks. While firing at Hezbollah, Israeli shells accidentally killed
100 civilians at Qana. Hamas suicide bombers attacked Israelis on at least three occasions.
Israel formally recognized the PA, that is the Palestinian Authority, in 1997.
The PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) has also continued to exist.
In 1998 Bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization
bombed the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Arriving within a day, Israeli rescue teams saved the
lives of three victims from the ruins.
In 1999 Israel had a bumper year for watermelons with some 369,200 produced. In most other years
the average is around only 111,000 watermelons.
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| Israel produces a huge number of roses and other flowers |
Israel is one of the greatest producers of flowers. In the year
2000 exports passed $50 million. The most commonly grown are wax flowers and roses.
In 2000 Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
began a series of pro-Israel novels called the Left Behind novels. Their books dealt with the prophetic
role of Israel in the End Times, and they drew much positive interest from American readers about Israel.
A Palestinian uprising called the Second Intifada began in late September 2000.
About 5,500 Palestinians, over 1,100 Israelis and 64 foreigners died.
On September 11, 2001 Muslim terrorists
in the US from Saudi Arabia hijacked then crashed passenger jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York
City, another jet destroyed much of the Pentagon military headquarters of the US in Washington, D.C., a fourth that was likely
intended to destroy the White House, though, was prevented by an uprising of passengers although the terrorists crashed it
into a farm field, killing all on board it too.
The 9-11 event killed some 3,000 civilians, mostly Americans,
more than had been killed at one time except at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. US President
George W. Bush (son of former President George H. Bush) sent the US military to the Middle East at once, rightly convinced
that the leader of the terrorist act had been militant Muslim Osama Bin Laden, originally of Saudi Arabia, then in Afghanistan.
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| Tora Bora |
|
|
| US air strikes against Tora Bora |
|
US intelligence believed Saddam Hussein the dictator
of Iraq might have weapons of mass destruction, perhaps encouraging or abetting Al Qaeda. In late 2001
American and allied soldiers fought Al Qaeda in the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, which drove Al Qaeda into hiding, but
Bin Laden was not killed until after found in Pakistan and slain there by U.S. Special Operations forces on May 2, 2011.
His threats and doings in the meantime were an encouragement to other terrorist groups operating against Israel and
the West.  On March 20, 2003 the US, U.K. and some other allies such as Poland, Australia
and 70,000 Kurds from northern Iraq attacked Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi military in what is called the Second Gulf War.
Israel was not directly involved although there may for example have been some sharing of information.
The invasion ended April 30, 2003 after which the occupying US military hunted, found and killed Saddam Hussein while
continuing to fight Iraqi guerrillas and Al Qaeda opposers; and sought to turn Iraq into a democracy. The same year
Israel had produced a record 146,473 Fc of cherries compared to the about 7,000 Fc of more typical years.
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| Israel produces some high class wines |
In 2004 Israel had a bumper crop of
grapes, the production quantity being 139,850. Its agricultural community is working to develop more varieties
that can thrive even in soil that has a high concentration or salt or that is in a desert.
In 2006 Hezbollah fired thousands of Kyatusha missiles at Israel from Lebanon.
Israel invaded southern Lebanon, was countered by Hezbollah’s guerilla fighters, and eventually drew back.
Israel and sometimes the
Palestinian Authority have fought against another organization called Hamas, that is even more militant than the Palestinian
Authority. Hamas has brigades trained in Syria and Iran, receives funding and military equipment from Iran.
In 2007 it officially became the fundamentalist Sunni Islamic political party governing the Gaza Strip, and in writing
has declared that it exists to destroy Israel.
In November
2008 members of Bnei Menashe, claiming descent from the lost tribe of Manasseh, migrated from northern India, resettling in
Upper Nazareth and Karmiel. Genetic tests have been contradictory but regardless they had formally converted
while in India. In 2009 some Chinese Jews migrated to Israel from Kaifeng, China while about 600 to 1000
remained in Kaifeng.
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| U.S. President Barack Obama |
In 2008 the United States elected Barack Obama as President. Some
in Israel and the United States worried that he might be too friendly to Muslim nations at the expense of Israel.
In January 2009, on a broadcast of The 700 Club, American
Southern Baptist preacher-and-far-right-political conservative Pat Robertson said he was "adamantly opposed" to
Jerusalem being divided between Israel and the Palestinians, and Armageddon was "not going to be fought at Megiddo"
but would be a battle during which Jews must try to keep Jerusalem against the will of all the other nations. That same
month U.S. President Barack Obama took office.
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| Iranian submarine |
The possibility of war with Iran existed as Israeli and American
intelligence agencies show that it kept attempting to make atomic bombs, and its President Ahmadinejad had openly threatened
Israel’s existence. To slow the nuclear effort in 2010 Israel, possibly with US help, used the stuxnet
virus to infiltrate via the internet and damage Iran’s nuclear facilities.
In 2010 more than 121,000 Ethiopian Jews were in Israel, most having come during 1984 and 1991, many of the
youth having military careers. A DNA study by Behar et al. noted more Middle Eastern genetic clusters similar to those of
Semetic-speaking Tigreans and Amharas than those of Cushitic-speaking Oromos.
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| Hospital where Bouazizi died |
On December 17, 2010
a street vendor in Tunisia named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest harassment from bullying police and
government officials. Sparked by his willingness to die fighting tyranny and aided by Facebook, the news
spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East, and numerous pro-democracy uprisings collectively known as “The
Arab Spring” were organized and implemented by the People in most of the area’s nations headed by many long-time,
extra harsh dictatorships. Some other people in the various lands also burnt themselves alive to show the
depths of their frustration from not having freedom and dignity. During the Arab Spring, Egypt’s People forced
dictator Hosni Mubarak to resign in 2011. Libya’s People also rose up against their dictator Gaddafi and with
support from NATO’s air force eventually were able to push the dictator and his army of mostly non-Libyan mercenaries
aside. When Syria’s people rose up against the dictator Bashad al-Assad he had his forces to massacred
and tortured many of them including small children, and yet they continued to protest.
Sparkled also by the general
climate of revolt, in May and June, 2011 crowds of Arabs protesting that the 1948 War drove many as refugees out of what
is now Israel marched from adjoining Arab nations against Israel’s borders hoping to spark an uprising by other
Arabs living in Israel, but Israeli security forces acted to scatter and drive them back, possibly killing up to 23 and wounding
350.
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| Benjamin Netanyahu |
In 2011 Fatah, the main party of the PLO, announced that it was working toward
a government in unity with the highly militant Hamas organization. Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu
said that the PA must choose if it wanted peace with Israel or with Hamas. On August 18, 2011
Muslim terrorists in cars killed seven Israelis on tourist buses heading to vacation at Eilat. Israel responded
with an airstrike on Gaza.
In the U.S. as in Israel, the Jewish
people have brought many blessings. Due to focusing on getting a higher education, working hard and capably especially
in the professions and technologies, management and fianances, in 2011 of the approximately 2% of Americans who are Jewish some
40% constituted all the billionaires in the U.S. Over 45% of large gifts to charities were made by
Jewish Americans, most living in New York, Florida and California. So in all nations the literal seed or descendants
of Abraham have continued to bring many blessings.
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