FACT SHEET: The Jewish people are both the indigenous and ancestral people of the land they currently live in known as Israel.

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” - Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The modern state of Israel came into existence on May 14, 1948.  The Ottoman Empire ended during World War One and the British took over with their Palestine mandate. In 1917 the Balfour Declaration indicated that the British would welcome the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, while at the same time safeguarding the rights of the non-Jewish population. This led to great hostility from the Muslim population to a Jewish homeland, and the British delaying their exit from the Palestinian Mandate. 

On August 23, 1929, Arab residents in the city of Hebron "led a pogrom against their 800 Jewish neighbors as documented by The Jewish Virtual Library. 67 Jews were killed. Synagogues and homes, lived in for generations, were destroyed."

It also explains why the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini was making visits to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to obtain "a German-Italian declaration recognizing the independence of Arab states and their right to work to prevent the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in the Holy Land." He did not succeed in his mission.

According to Yad Vashem, "Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was a despicable antisemite and ardent Nazi supporter. Nevertheless, the role he played in the Holocaust was marginal." 

Haj Amin al-Husseini and Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, 1941Credit: German Federal Archives

The Jewish people without their own homeland since 70 AD had endured centuries of pogroms, persecution, ethnic cleansing, forced religious conversion, and in the 20th century in Europe the Holocaust. The revulsion of the international community in the aftermath of opening the death camps underscored the Zionist case for a Jewish homeland.  What goes unmentioned in the conversation over Israel and Palestine is that there had never been a Palestinian state or kingdom prior to its creation together with the reemergence of a Jewish state in 1948.

Let’s be clear:

Before Israel, there was a British mandate, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the British Mandate, there was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Ottoman Empire, there was the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, not a Palestinian state.…

— Jenn Griffin (@HotBrandMedia) October 11, 2023

Although the United Nations had authorized a two state partition: One Jewish and One Palestinian Arab.  The Palestinians allied with their Arab neighbors in a coalition to invade and destroy the new Jewish nation, and although outgunned in the first Arab-Israeli War 1948-49, Israel survived, and gained territory against their aggressors.  

Wars would continue with the Suez Crisis in 1956, and the Six Days War in 1967. Israel's victory in the Six Days War redrew the map of the Middle East with the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria taken over by the Jewish state.

The Arab states together with communist Cuba tried to destroy Israel in another war of aggression  fifty years ago October 6, 1973 during high holy Jewish holidays in what became known as the Yom Kippur War.

Communists lie, and one of their favorite past times is rewriting history. The case of Israel is an example of this on steroids. The Soviet Union assisted the Arab states in the lead up to the Six Days War, and in the disastrous aftermath initiated an active measures campaign that over a half century later has proven effective in harming Israel and the United States. A 2019 paper titled "THE KGB AND ANTI -ISRAEL PROPAGANDA OPERATIONS" by Eli Cohen and Elizabeth Boyd is available online that explains this in greater detail, but here is partial summary taken from it.

Operation SIG is the KGB operation to sow worldwide disapproval for the US and Israel. SIG is the Russian acronym for Sionistskiye Gosudarstva, or “Jewish (or Zionist) Government.” The operation started shortly after 1967, when the drive for Arab unity collapsed along with the economies of the armies that attacked Israel (Shlaim, 2003). ...“After defeat of Soviet-controlled Arab states in the 1967 Six-Day war, the Soviet Union started a widespread under-cover campaign against Israel, involving propaganda as well as direct military support (funding, arms, training) to terrorist groups declaring Israel as their enemy. Additionally, the USSR took the decision to increase anti-Israeli sentiment by disseminating anti-Zionist propaganda and even referencing previous anti-Semitic tropes from Western culture… The overall goal of the campaign was to spread the idea that the state of Israel was an oppressive, imperialist state which was built on unjust terms operation “SIG” (“Zionist Governments”) that was devised in 1972 to turn the Arab world against Israel and the United States”

This effort officially ended in 1988, but may have been resumed by former KGB officer and current Russian despot Vladimir Putin.

 

Twelve Tribes of Israel 1200 - 1050 BC

 

 

The rest of this blog entry focuses on the history of the Jewish people in the land currently known as Israel, and seeks to dispel this disinformation.

 

I have attended meetings in the United States were folks who identify as progressive would begin the meeting with a land acknowledgement. The Smithsonian Museum's National Museum of the American Indian on their website Native Knowledge 360° provides the following description of the practice.

Land acknowledgment is a traditional custom that dates back centuries in many Native nations and communities. Today, land acknowledgments are used by Native Peoples and non-Natives to recognize Indigenous Peoples who are the original stewards of the lands on which we now live. Before public events and other important gatherings hosted by the National Museum of the American Indian, a speaker offers this acknowledgment displayed in the quote container on behalf of everyone present.

After millennia of Native history, and centuries of displacement and dispossession, acknowledging original Indigenous inhabitants is complex. Many places in the Americas have been home to different Native Nations over time, and many Indigenous people no longer live on lands to which they have ancestral ties.

The Jewish people are indigenous to the land they live on today, and lands inhabited by Palestinians, such as Gaza and the West Bank. Three thousand years ago the state of Israel was dominated by a Jewish community, until they were taken over by the Roman Empire in 63 BC and turned into a protectorate to rule over them, until the Romans crushed them, and drove many of them out of their homeland for violently resisting imperial rule beginning in 66 AD, the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple in 70 AD and Jewish resisters to occupation were scattered across the Roman Empire in modern day Iraq, Spain, Saudi Arabia, and parts of Eastern Europe. 

The Romans erected the Arch of Titus which depicts the Emperor's sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD to celebrate their victory. It still survives today in Rome just outside of the ruins of the Colosseum. This past week following the start of the wave of terrorist attacks against Israel by Hamas the emblem of the modern state of Israel was projected onto it.

The Romans built this arch to celebrate their defeat of the Jewish people in ancient #Israel. The Roman Empire is long gone, but 2,000 years later, the #Jewish people and Israel are still here. !!!עם ישראל חי pic.twitter.com/T1IUKydKet

— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) October 10, 2023

More Jewish people returned to Israel following the end of the Roman Empire with the rise of the Islamic Empire, when non-Muslims, including many Jews, were driven out of Saudi Arabia, Jews were allowed to return to their homeland in 637AD after being banished for 500 years, Israel had been renamed Palestine by the Romans, but the name was not formally recognized by the rulers of the Islamic empire.

This is to say that out of the past 3,000 years there has been a Jewish presence in Israel for 3,000 years. The name Israel is an indigenous name for an indigenous people who today are living on their ancestral lands, and the territories occupied by Palestinians today, used to be part of ancient Israel.

The term Palestine has a long history, but the word is a European invention. According to historians the name first appeared in the 12th century BC and derives from the Greek word Philistia,  the name Greek writers gave to the land of the Philistines, and revived by the Romans 1,400 years later in the 2nd century AD as "Syria Palaestina."  However the name Palestine, following the collapse of the Roman Empire, had no official status until the British took over the land from the Ottoman Empire after WW1 through the League of Nations and it was called the Mandate for Palestine, but it also recognized the right to a Jewish homeland.

Centuries of history in 18 minutes – @MelanieLatest unravels the truth and myth of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Full interview 👇
🗣️ @francisjfoster @KonstantinKisin pic.twitter.com/46bR8RNmfz

— TRIGGERnometry (@triggerpod) October 9, 2023

This is not to say that the self-identified Palestinians do not have a right to a sovereign state, but the problem has been when repeatedly offered one, many have preferred to take the opportunity to wage a war of extermination against Israel with the aid and encouragement of neighboring (or nearby) Islamic states. The Palestinian problem is truly a Palestinian problem with the existence of a Jewish state in a sea of Muslim ones. It has been compounded by communist misinformation first spread by the KGB in an active measure against Israel and the United States.

 

Communist Party USA is spreading disinformation spread by the Castro Regime about COVID-19

Communists lie and people die.

Communist Party USA on October 7th was repeating and sharing disinformation spread by the Castro regime about COVID-19 over social media. Journalists in Cuba who attempt to counter the regime narrative with facts are being gagged. Early on in the pandemic in Pinar del Rio on April 13, 2020 video of a body with regime agents expressing concern that the corpse was contaminated with the coronavirus was uploaded to Facebook and was reported on in El Nuevo Herald. Since then the regime has cracked down on citizen journalists, and those uploading images and video that portray the Castro regime in a poor light. 

The statement repeated by CPUSA is false on multiple fronts. First, Castro regime numbers are false but even their number of current active cases, according to Havana, are 482 not 38. The number 38 is for number of new cases claimed by Havana on October 6, 2020. 

Second, there were 105 daily cases in Washington, DC on October 6th compared to 28 cases on the previous day. Overall active cases in DC are 2,671. Metro area population of Washington DC in 2020 is 5,322,000. These numbers are more reliable than what Havana is providing the international community. 

In February 2020 the Castro regime announced that there was a shortage of soap and detergent in Cuba that would not be alleviated until April 2020 or later, due to decisions made by the central planning authorities. This meant that Cubans did not have access to soap to wash their hands for months at the start of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of travelers from Europe, China, and other areas heavily impacted by the coronavirus had been entering Cuba throughout the early months of the outbreak. For an idea of the magnitude consider that at least 147,900 Italian tourists and 49,781 Chinese tourists traveled to Cuba in 2018 and Cuba's military run tourism industry sought to double the number of Chinese tourists.

SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes COVID-19

Castro regime officials falsely claimed throughout February and March 2020 that Cuba was a safe harbour with effective treatments for (SARS-CoV-2) virus for visiting tourists.

Officials refused to close schools, or take other precautions, Cubans desperately began to take steps on their own against the pandemic, having learned about it on the internet. Teachers, ignoring the regime's orders, closed schools and sent children home. The Catholic church, aware of the danger presented by public gatherings, suspended religious services. 

Cuba’s independent journalists raised the alarm while the official media insisted that the country was prepared for the epidemic, that tourists were welcomed while the pandemic ran its course elsewhere. Officials said that Cuba’s sun was “a good antidote” and continued to advertise their false claims on social media targeting European and North American audiences.

The claim that Cuba did not have coronavirus in larger numbers under these circumstances was highly unlikely, but then North Korea continued to claim that they has no cases of coronavirus through July 2020, despite having a border with Communist China, where the virus outbreak occurred in Wuhan, and South Korea having 24,422 cases. 

Consider, recent history in Cuba on reporting outbreaks, and the consequences for healthcare professionals and journalists.

Dengue 1997

Dengue virus

In 1997 the Cuban government covered up a dengue outbreak, jailing a Cuban doctor who had gone public for “enemy propaganda.” Amnesty International provided additional detail on what had happened.

Dr  Desi  Mendoza  Rivero,  president of the Santiago  de  Cuba  Independent  Medical  Association, ... had been detained on 25 June 1997 in Santiago de Cuba, after making statements, which were disseminated by foreign media, about an epidemic of dengue fever in Santiago de Cuba  which,  according  to  him,  had  caused  several  deaths.  He  reportedly  accused  the authorities  of  covering  up  the  true  extent  of  the  epidemic  and  of  not  taking  sufficient measures to control it. He was brought to trial on 18 November 1997 and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment, charged with "enemy propaganda."

First official report to the World Health Organization of the dengue outbreak was six months after initial identification made by the jailed and later forcibly exiled physician. Mendoza Rivero's reports were eventually confirmed. This episode would have a chilling effect on other doctors coming forward.

Cholera 2012

Cholera

Fifteen years later, news of a cholera outbreak in Manzanillo, in the east of the island, broke in El Nuevo Herald on June 29, 2012 thanks to the reporting of an independent reporter in the island. Calixto Martinez, the independent Cuban journalist who broke the story was jailed. The state controlled media did not confirm the outbreak until days later on July 3, 2012. The BBC reported on July 7, 2012 that a patient had been diagnosed with cholera in Havana. The Cuban government stated that it had it under control and on August 28, 2012 said the outbreak was over.

In July 2013 an Italian tourist returned from Cuba with severe renal failure due to cholera. New York high school teacher Alfredo Gómez contracted cholera during a family visit to Havana during the summer of 2013 and was billed $4,700 from the government hospital. A total of 12 tourists were identified who had contracted cholera in Cuba. On August 22, 2013 Reuters reported that Cuba was still struggling with cholera outbreaks in various provinces.

Zika 2017

Zika virus

In the August 22, 2019 The New York Times article by Carl Zimmer, "Zika Was Soaring Across Cuba. Few Outside the Country Knew", the newspaper tries to shift the blame for an unreported outbreak of zika in Cuba in 2017 on a reporting glitch. This ignored a decades long government pattern of covering up epidemics.

"Until now, the Pan American Health Organization had no record of any Zika infection in Cuba in 2017, much less an outbreak. Following inquiries by The New York Times about the new study, published in the journal Cell, officials acknowledged that they had failed to tally 1,384 cases reported by Cuban officials that year. [...] Officials at P.A.H.O., an arm of the World Health Organization, blamed the failure to publish timely data on the Cuba outbreak on a “technical glitch.” The information was held in a database, they said, but not visible on the website. By Thursday afternoon, the website had been updated."

On August 2, 2017, the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene published the paper “Why Did Zika Not Explode in Cuba?” citing “Cuba’s early and successful response to Zika, grounded in the country’s long-standing dengue prevention and control program, serves as a model of rapid mobilization of intersectoral efforts.” It also ignored reports that Cuba had jailed doctors and covered up prior epidemics.

News stories of Zika transmissions with a Cuba link should have raised questions. The first case of sexually transmitted Zika reported to the Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County on August 1, 2017 was by a person whose partner had returned from Cuba with Zika symptoms.

In January 2019, The New Scientist broke the news that "thousands of Zika virus cases went unreported in Cuba in 2017, according to an analysis of data on travelers to the Caribbean island. Veiling them may have led to many other cases that year." 

Relying on Castro regime data on coronavirus cases in the current pandemic is a dangerous proposition both for one’s credibility and for the lives of Cubans and those visiting the island.

Conclusions and recommendations

When travel opens up again will these kind of screening measures be in place to limit the spread of COVID-19 from international travelers especially from governments such as China, North Korea, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba that can not be trusted to give accurate information on outbreaks? 

We are in a new world with the current pandemic and recent history has shown that it is better to be prepared than caught by surprise because other countries and international health agencies have not done their due diligence endangering millions.

Policymakers should look to what Taiwan, South Korea, and Australia have done to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and keep a wide berth from what the Castro regime is doing.  

If  you are interested in the truth then read Katherine Hirschfeld's Health, Politics, and Revolution in Cuba Since 1898, to obtain a fresh perspective from an honest academic on the realities of healthcare in Communist Cuba.  

Steer away from communist propaganda. Remember when communists lie, people die. Thanks to the lies of communist China over 1,060,562 people have died of this disease around the world.