“The introduction of the Jewish State into the Arab heartland exalted many hearts and broke many more. More than anything in this century it was a triumph and a desolation. Full of high hopes it produced the most intractable conflict of our times.” So wrote journalist and world affairs commentator James Cameron, in 1976. What follows comes from his excellent, dispassionate, lucid and brief book ‘The Making of Israel.’ The quotes are his.
Where it began. Theodor Herzl a cultivated Viennese journalist outraged by the Dreyfus scandal when a Jewish officer in the French army was framed on a treason charge lit a flame under the idea of a Promised Land where Jewish people could live free of persecution and hostility, funded by rich Jewish interests. Zionism was born with the First Zionist Congress held in Basel 29 August 1897.
Chaim Weizmann, who later became the first President of Israel, joined. He was an eminent biochemist who gave great service to the British government during World War One. ‘It was he who extracted from the then British Foreign Minister through gratitude, expediency, absent-mindedness, not one will ever know – the famous Balfour Declaration.’
‘It was ambiguous, elusive, provocative, but it was the springboard.’ To the Arabs it was an act of outright imperialism to wilfully dispose of the future of a territory to which Britain had had no rightful claim, without any consultation with the 92% non-Jewish part of the population. ‘To the British it was an afterthought, to Jewish people a green light.’
During the British Palestine Mandate (1920 to 1948) the indigenous Arabs were constantly dispossessed from their land as the Jewish communities burgeoned. Conflicts grew and ‘Palestine becomes an arena of endless guerilla warfare.’ ‘The aspirations of the Jews and Arabs are irreconcilable.’
Along comes World War 11 and the Holocaust. Jewish immigration is still strictly limited by the British to 1500 a month. In desperation illegal ships bring in more, including the Exodus carrying 4500 survivors of the death-camps, which the British Navy inexplicably rammed and returned to Germany on the orders of Ernest Bevin, the Labour Foreign Minister, whose dislike to the Jews was well known backed by the traditionally Arabist UK Foreign Office.
‘Almost every independent newspaper in the world reported the Exodus with incredulous horror. Much of what happened in the Mandate must be considered against this dismal betrayal.’
In Palestine sections of the Jewish community have decided violence is the only way to make a difference to their cause. The British Mandatory Authority are now exasperated. ‘No conceivable proposal that suits the Arabs can possibly mollify the Jews.’ In 1947 the British government decides to toss Palestine back to the United Nations. The UN tries for partition which is turned down flat by the Arabs. ‘By now it is abundantly clear that no compromise any mortal man can devise is going to reconcile the Arabs to the legal existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.’
There are attacks and counter-attacks inside Israel, roads are blockaded and the massacre at Deir Yassin follows. Mass panic sends Palestinian refugees fleeing from their villages – 6000 from Tiberias, 40,000 from Haifa.
‘The stage is now ready for the culmination of the story, of a sick and sorrowful conflict, not between right and wrong, but between two forms of right and, maybe two forms of wrong.’
In spring of 1948 there is no government and no mandate authority, the country was ‘a shifting mosaic of overlordships.’ ‘It is possible that there was no specific British intention to leave chaos behind them but is is sure that no particular effort was made to prevent it.’
In the US the partition principle was accepted but with diminishing enthusiasm. The State and Defence department were against it because it could open the Middle East to Russian interference and jeopardise Arab oil. While President Harry Truman wanted to conciliate the domestic Jewish vote.
As time wore on Harry Truman, like the British before him, became exasperated at being pounded by constant pressure from the Zionists. ‘The Jews are so emotional ,’ he wrote, ‘and the Arabs so difficult to talk with that it is impossible to get anything done.’
Truman dithered, his underlings put out conflicting messages, until eventually a school friend introduced him to Weizmann and he decided that he would look foolish to abandon his earlier acceptance of partition.
A week before the British mandate ended there was still no certainty of a dominantly Jewish state although many Arabs had fled by this time. Various Arab armies stood at the ready including a Jordanian one backed by the British aiming to capture the areas laid down in the Partition for the Arabs. There was a massacre at Etzion killed 70 Jewish settlers in retaliation for Deir Yassin. Two days before the mandate ended another Arab attack on a medical convoy killed 77 Jewish doctors, nurses and helpers. The British refused to intervene pointing to Deir Yassin.
At this point Jerusalem was under siege so the administration of the new country was moved to Tel Aviv.
On the day itself the British moved out and the Jewish government, under David Ben Gurion, declared itself in charge.
‘And no one lived happily ever after.’
What an unholy mess. It all sounded so simple and celebratory Ben Gurion cutting the ribbon and announcing Israel open until you look at what was actually going on.
James Cameron’s epilogue from 1976
“Three times in the last quarter century I have personally seen the endless tensions of the Middle East build up their content of hate and fear until it burst across the Israel-Arab borders, in one direction or another, leaving its predictable residue of triumph and defeat and sorrow and recrimination and solving nothing. Each time the world knew uneasily that the next time would be worse, and it was. Each times the wounds were deeper and the scars more brutal. Each time the world protested this could not go on, while perpetuating the factors that made it inevitable.
By and by a new generation will grow up in the Middle East, both Arab and Israeli, which will reject the role of pawns in the Power Game, refuse the importunities and persuasions of the strong and cynical, and recognize, as many voiceless patriots already recognize, that what is done is done, and that both sides must make a future together, if there is to be one at all. Amen.”
ADD ON:
The Sabra Chatila Camp massacre of 16 September 1982 happened after Israeli troops had invaded Lebanon in an effort to wipe out the Palestine Liberation Organisation. With the tacit support of the US, Sharon paid siege to Beirut for two months which was then embroiled in a civil war. Israeli troops sealed off the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila while right-wing Lebanese militiamen went on a killing spree, targeting unarmed civilians and killing anywhere between 500 and 3500 refugees and those living in the locality.
Kim Ghattas writes in the FT: “We are still living with the consequences of Sharon’s hubris and (USA) Haig’s wink, including the birth of an axis of resistance from Damascus to Tehran.”
The chart for the Sabra Shatila Camp Massacres does echo with the present Solar Eclipse with Saturn on the exact 21 Libra degree conjunct Mercury and Pluto. The SA Mercury is exactly conjunct the Mars at the moment as is the SA Saturn conjunct the Uranus – stirring up old anger and grievances.
Historical charts:
Theodor Herzl, 2 May 1860 1.30 am Budapest, was a very determined Sun Pluto in Taurus square a crusading Aquarius North Node and square Saturn in Leo.
Chaim Weizmann, 17 November 1874 Motol, Belarus (birthdate may be iffy) on this is a Sun Mercury in Scorpio opposition Pluto with Saturn in Aquarius opposition Uranus.
The First Zionist Congress, 29 August 1897, Basel, has a Virgo Sun square Pluto and an idealistic Jupiter square Neptune with a crusading Aquarius Node and Saturn Uranus in Scorpio.
Nahum Sokolow, 10 January 1859, also instrumental in getting international support for a Jewish homeland, was a Sun Capricorn with Pluto in Taurus square Saturn in Leo and Uranus in Taurus square a crusading Aquarius North Node.
What is notable is the proliferation of Fixed signs – obstinate to the nth degree and enduring.
Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, was a Sun, Jupiter, Venus in Leo with an innovative, disruptive Uranus Pluto in Aries. His Mars in Leo falls close to the Israel Mars; and his Leo planets to the Israel Moon. When it came into existence in 1948 (he being long dead) tr Uranus was conjunct his Midheaven with Jupiter in his 4th. His declaration may have been incidental in his mind but proved to be the catalyst for what followed. On his astrocartography, birth time being sound, his Sun, Jupiter, Venus midheaven line runs through Israel.
I’m almost certainly going to get walloped on this site for this post, but the recent reports of Israeli babies being beheaded or shoot puts me in mind of the Massacre of the Innocents by Herod.
I wondered if there was any astrological signature of that event (presumably anytime between 4BC and 2AD) and today that match.
@UM, I heard on the BBC last night that the report of finding 40 decapitated babies was debunked by the Israeli military and responsible journalists. It’s disinformation, of the type believable in this era of vile atrocities.
The way it came across to me was that the babies were killed (probably shot), but not decapitated.
To me, that sounds like dancing on the head of a pin. Either ways, babies were murdered.
If that was not what happened (i.e. no corpses of babies were found), they should say so unequivocally.
Ok Les that sounds fair to me especially as he has admitted it. I withdraw my previous post.
Personally, I have been for Two State Solution and liberation of Palestinian people since my early teens.
Still, I’m all consumed by Kfar Aza right now. Echos of Soviet partisan attacks to villages at Finnish Boarder 1943-44. We were allied with *literal* Nazis then. But did it justify killing women,children and even babies, as the partisans did? My aunt worked at a boarder community in North for 35. She personally knows a lady who was a 4-year-old hiding under a pile of bodies that were her extended family.
I just can’t get over of some people’s incapacity to look beyond ideological boundaries ans acknowledge the evil.
While I have no intention of sticking up for Trump, I doubt very much the word of a disgruntled relative who probably hasn’t seen her uncle for many years, therefore cannot possibly know what he did or didn’t do.
It’s well known that Trump gave Israeli intelligence on Mossad and ISIS to the Russians when Lavrov and Kislyak were in the White House in 2017. Trump admitted to it, Israel responded with anger. Mary Trump wasn’t speculating. What the exact intelligence was and whether it had any bearing on the current situation is unclear but there’s been questions about it lately.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/flashback-trump-admitted-to-sharing-classified-intelligence-from-israel-to-russia/ar-AA1hQZHh
Here’s an article on Hamas.
Palestinians are people—they are not Hamas, but it’s important to understand the terrorist groups involved & who is funding them
https://apple.news/AKq7yRTAdReawRsl48zqoZQ
@KG, thank you! I wish I could give an access to and translate an article from Finnish news paper from 2019. Just about how Hamas operates.
Marjorie, thank for two interesting and informative articles regarding Israel and the Middle East. An unholy mess!
I watched Yoav Shamir’s ‘Defamation’ film on YouTube. Poor guy began making a documentary on Anti-Sematism and from the start religious Jews like his mother said they had never seen it or experienced it and felt it was simply something shouted when they were caught cheating and lusting after other people’s money abroad? The film goes on with the director talking to the ADL and finding that their cases of Anti-Sematism just was either nonsense “Someone said ‘Jewish shit’ on their phone, or “someone threw a stone at a bus”…. The director becomes bewildered by the paranoia and deluded state of his fellow community and just lets events play out in front of the audiences’ eyes for them to reach their own conclusion….”We have got to let go of the past” is his conclusion at the end where he managed to not get credible A.S. together across the whole film just a lot of one sided arguments he couldn’t make sense of
let’s say gaza city is on the way out. US hostages. mars in scorpio.
It is the tip of the ice … this is one book with one point of view. This area always was shifting around by bigger powers the then local people. Empires will come and go for long time . History and religious zelous push people to be idealistic and extream . Not sure which chart will show it. Geographical Israel was in history the road from one place to another . Religiously it is important for large number around the world. For a few centuries it got neglected . Trains were developed. The Ottoman Empire was collapsing , Jewish and Arabs were contuinsly in this area . Documented violence excite at least from 18 century. Part of the Arabs brought from Egypt to work by Ibraim Pessa . Other came to work from Jordan when more jobs created by Jewish . And much more facts can show the drives and motives.
Marjorie Thank You. I have learned things I did not know with this series of articles.
Seconded. This was really useful.
Also it feels so important to get some balance in this situation, and to look at the context and not just at the events that have exploded since last weekend.
There would not have been as urgent a need to create the state of Israel and set off this unending cycle of suffering and terror if not for some of the nations responsible for stigmatizing (or killing) Jews, who tried to address their collective guilt by agreeing to create a home – by displacing another people. The more skeptical would say that this ‘side effect’ was quite intended. There once was a time when Arabs and Jews coexisted peacefully in the same cities. Now division (along every line) has grown more acute – such as in the US. (It frankly seems a miracle that the Good Friday Agreement was once reached)
The role of Iran in the current situation is in part an unintended effect of the myopic, disastrous war in Iraq (which Bush eagerly claimed to have won, leaving behind a nation divided and destroyed and a region in turmoil). While Saddam was unquestionably bad, there were no ‘WMDs’; geopolitically, he was a regional, powerful check vs Iran. His fall created a destabilizing domino effect, spreading to Syria, Turkey, and unleashing refugees into Europe (which further strengthened right-wing anti-immigrant sentiments), while boosting Iran.
Unfortunately, many leaders do not appear to study history, nor understand other cultures, and primarily have short-term policies (the better to be reelected by equally short-sighted voters).
The world continue to reap what our predecessors have sown.
I agree about the Iraq War’s numerous unintended consequences, Terri.
What may be relevant, astrologically, is the chart for the start of that war. 20th March, 2003, 5.33 am, Baghdad.
The Moon is 22 Libra, trine Saturn, sextile Pluto, square Chiron at 17 Capricorn. Black Moon Lilith is 4 Taurus. Both are in line for this month’s eclipses – as indeed are so many other charts relevant to this horrific and dangerous moment in history.
The degrees and dates of the eclipses this year are the same as those in 2004, when the war that was supposed to be brief was raging in Iraq. October 2004’s eclipses in Libra and Taurus belong to the 6 South Saros Series which repeated in 2022. It’s founding chart has a Pluto/Mars opposition, and is about ‘being forceful and taking power’, according to Bernadette Brady. October 2023 eclipses belong to Saros Series 7 South, which also has a Pluto/Mars theme through a square aspect. Brady writes about the ‘power, anger and force’ of this Saros Series.
This month we have the Mars in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn to contend with, along with the message of the eclipses. Everything is resonating through both recent history, and history stretching back centuries. I have no words really, apart from a desire for peace to prevail.
Jane, I have added the Sabra Shatila Camp Massacre chart which has that same 21 Libra marker. It dies seem to be resonating at the moment.
Thank you Marjorie – and for all the wonderfully detailed work you’ve posted on this. Looking at various charts I’ve been amazed how certain degrees, particularly 21 Libra/Aries keep on cropping up through the years. Along with my renewed horror at how humans can behave towards one another, which doesn’t appear to have changed much for centuries. I find myself doing things like cooking a lot of delicious food, or planting bulbs, to seek balance and affirm life.
@Anita, currently there is no proof that is available to the public, but it is 100 percent possible. There is no depth to which he will not sink, and his niece is in a better position to know that than most.
Thanks for this. I feel I need to be educated about this old, deep rooted issue that’s dominating the headlines.
The 14th October Solar Eclipse…only days ago we were wondering how that energy was going to manifest.
“By now it is abundantly clear that no compromise any mortal man can devise is going to reconcile the Arabs to the legal existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.”
Peace is a cornerstone of the main religions involved here and this conflict must cease. There is literally no future in it.
Thank you. I wonder how the on-going relationship between Russia and Iran comes into play in relation to this conflict since there have been some reports regarding Iran aiding Putin with weapons for its war against Ukraine as well as Iran aiding Hamas. Of cause all of this playing out while the US Congress as well as US democracy is in disarray. Apparently Mary Trump in her post on Twitter asked “why her maniac uncle is still allowed to roam free” since he freely divulged highly classified information about US nuclear subs to an Australian business man at Mar-a-lago. The man in question has been cooperating with special council Jack Smith for the Mar-a-Lago case.
In her tweet Mary Trump is suggesting her uncle “likely gave Putin (who gave Iran, who gave Hamas) Israel’s national security secrets”. Pure speculation on her part, but who knows, maybe not out of the realm of possibilities in my view.
@Anita, it’s well documented that Trump gave the Russian ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, Israeli secrets during a much-photographed Oval Office visit.
Thank you for this information. It also explains why the Israeli flag is hanging outside the City hall in Basel today!
Great research and history lessons from you ,Marjorie.
I guess many don’t know so it’s important.
Thank you.
Now,the Baltic Gas line is broken.
So, speculation .Russia,again.
No doubt.
Thanks again