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Of Historical Interest

(Note: This page does not include original source documents, available here.)

April 2002: Setting the Record Straight: “The Siege” of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem by Yair Altman, Israel Hayom, October 9, 2017 (see also:  A siege on the truth at NYU by Avi Dichter, The Times of Israel, October 11, 2017)

1995 Audio: The Night In Question (Yitzhak Rabin’s Assassination, 1:02’18”), This American Life Episode 570, October 16, 2015

1977: How Menachem Begin Made Peace with Israel’s Greatest Enemy by Daniel Gordis, Tablet, February 28, 2014 (excerpt from Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul by Daniel Gordis)

1976: 39 years after Entebbe, IDF releases operation log by Mitch Ginsburg, The Times of Israel, July 2, 2015 (see also video, Operation Antebbe Animation (3’53”), Zionism in Animation, July 5, 2015; Rescue at Entebbe: An Interview With the Chief Pilot, Israel Defense Forces, July 5, 2012; and video, Miracle at Entebbe: 40th Anniversary (6’29”) by Sydenham Shul, July 2016)

1975 Video: Israeli UN Ambassador Chaim Herzog General Assembly speech (23’10”), November 10, 1975

November 1975 Audio (24’35”): U.S. Ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan on UN Resolution 3379 equating Zionism with racism (with transcript)

1973: Video: The Yom Kippur War: When Israel Almost Fell (part 1) (10’49”), Jerusalem U., May 2019

1973: A History of ‘Evenhanded’ Failure by Evelyn Gordon, Commentary, September 3, 2016

1969: Golda Meir, the UN, and “Palestinians” by Elder of Ziyon, June 30, 2010

1967 Arguing About The Six Day War by Michael J. Koplow, Israel Policy Forum, Koplow Column, June 8, 2017

1967 Video: The Six Day War Project, (12-part series), Unpacked, May-June 2017; full video (36’00”, see accompanying materials here)

1967 The Six-Day War: This Time, the Loser Writes History by Gabriel Glickman, Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2017

1967 The Six-Day War: An Inevitable Conflict by Efraim Karsh, Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2017

1967 The Six-Day War: Israel’s Costs vs. Its Benefits by Efraim Inbar, Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2017

1967: Why History Still Matters: The 1967 Six-Day War by David Harris, The Times of Israel, June 5, 2019

1967: The 1967 Census of the West Bank and Gaza Strip: A Digitized Version by Joel Perlmann, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, November 2011–February 2012

In the summer of 1967, just after the Six-Day War brought the West Bank and Gaza Strip under Israeli control, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) supervised a census in these territories. The census included an impressive array of questions about individuals, households, and the quality of residences—about age, sex, religion, place of residence, educational attainment, occupation, industrial sector, income, household structure, health, female fertility, and housing conditions. Moreover, it asked two crucial questions about refugee status: Had the individual lived prior to the 1948 War in the area that became the State of Israel? And, Was the individual living in or outside of a refugee camp at the time the census was taken?

1967: The Six Day War: Causes and Consequences, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (includes photos, documents, and much useful analysis)

1967: The Six-Day War, June 5–10, 1967 by Eli Hertz

June 8, 1967: The ‘USS Liberty’: Case Closed by Michael B. Oren, Azure Spring 5760 / 2000, no. 9 (see also book, The Liberty Incident: the 1967 Israeli Attack on the U.S. Navy Spy Ship by A. Jay Cristol, Brasseys, Inc., 2003)

1967: How Israel won the Six-Day War by Yossi Melman, Haaretz, March 31, 2011: A double agent and his long-overlooked chief handler together pulled off one of the most remarkable deceptions in Israeli intelligence history.

Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation by Yossi Klein Halevi

1961: Debate between Israeli Ambassador Yaacov Herzog and British historian Arnold Toynbee

1956: Audio: Edward R. Murrow interview with former Israel Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (47’58”), Solid Principles, February 3, 1956; an edited version appeared on CBS TV’s “See It Now” on March 6, 1956

1949: Video: Tel Aviv in 1949 (2’50”)

1949: The Land Controversy: the 94% myth by Ken Stein, Center for Israel Education, February 2013

Who owned what land when the Mandate ended? Who controlled what land when the 1947-1949 war ended?

1948 Video (1:20’): Truman and Israel: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of US Support for Statehood in 1948, Dr. Robert Watson, The Haberman Institute for Jewish Studies

May 16, 1948: Cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, informing the UN of the Arab States’ military intervention in Palestine “to restore law and order”

“The Arab States recognize that the independence and sovereignty of Palestine which was so far subject to the British Mandate has now, with the termination of the Mandate, become established in fact, and maintain that the lawful inhabitants of Palestine are alone competent and entitled to set up an administration in Palestine for the discharge of all governmental functions without any external interference. As soon as that stage is reached the intervention of the Arab States, which is confined to the restoration of peace and establishment of law and order, shall be put an end to, and the sovereign State of Palestine will be competent in co-operation with the other States members of the Arab League, to take every step for the promotion of the welfare and security of its peoples and territory.”

The Massacre That Never Was: The Myth of Deir Yassin and the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem by Eliezer Tauber

April 9-10, 1948: “The Massacre That Never Was” by Daniel Gordis, January 10, 2022 (a review of The Massacre That Never Was by Eliezer Tauber about Deir Yassin)

1948-49: Israel’s War of Independence, Part 3: “Victory” (8’51”), Zionism 101, October 2015

1948: The Nakba Narrative Is Nonsense by Alex Safian, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), May 17, 2023

1948: 8-part video series, Declaring Israel’s Independence, Dr. Martin Kramer, Tikvah Fund (free enrollment required)

1948: How Harry Truman Crossed His Own State Department to Recognize Israel in 1948 by Efraim Karsh, Mosaic, April 16, 2018

1948: The False “Nakba” Narrative by Col (Res.) Dr. Raphael G. Bouchnik-Chen, The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 577, April 16, 2019

1948: Reflections on Deir Yassin, the Nakba, and War Crimes by Dr. Arnon Groiss, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University, BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 653, November 22, 2017

1948 Video:Israel’s War of Independence, Part 2: “The Fight to Survive” (8’27”), Zionism 101, September 2015

1948: Changing the Historical Narrative: Saeb Erekat’s New Spin by Amb. Alan Baker, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jerusalem Issue Brief Vol. 14, No. 8, March 23, 2014

1948: Israel and Creation Myths by David Shayne, The Algemeiner, November 29, 2013

1948 Video: Deir Yassin Revisited (1’46”)

1948 Video: How The State Of Israel Was Born (3’05”), Zionism in Animation, April 2015

1948: What Happened at Lydda by Martin Kramer, Mosaic, July 2014

In his celebrated book, Ari Shavit claims that “Zionism” committed a massacre in July 1948. Can the claim withstand scrutiny?

1948: Jewish Congress Seeks U.N. Action Against Anti-Jewish Law Drafted by Arab League, January 21, 1948 (see also Arab League draft law expelling Jews, original model legislation, and the cover letter, explaining the document)

1948: Video trailer: “Above and Beyond: The Birth of the Israeli Air Force” (7’45”), Playmount Productions

1948: LIFE in Israel in 1948 [photos, see links to Part 2 and Part 3]

1948: Robert Kennedy in Palestine, 1948 by Lenny Ben-David, Jewish Policy Center, Spring 2023

May 15, 1948: Front page of New York Times

May 14, 1948: U.S. President Harry Truman recognizes State of Israel

November 29, 1947:

1947-1949: Benny Morris’s Shocking Interview by Baruch Kimmerling, History News Network, January 26, 2004

1947-1948: Video: Israel’s War of Independence, Part 1: “The War Before the War” (8’51”), Zionism 101, September 2015

1947-1948: The Birth of Israel: Prague’s Crucial Role by Jiri Valenta and Leni Friedman Valenta, Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2019

1947: Azzam’s Genocidal Threat by David Barnett and Efraim Karsh, Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2011 [PDF]: The definitive source of the October 1947 threat by the Arab League’s first secretary-general that the establishment of a Jewish state would lead to “a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.”

1947: Online book: “The birth of Israel–the Drama as I saw it” by Jorge Garcia-Granados, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948 (via University of Michigan/Hathi Trust).  Garcia-Granados was a prominent Guatemalan diplomat and a member of the UN Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) whose recommendations were formalized in the Partition Plan (UN General Assembly Resolution 181).

1947: UN Resolution 181 – The Partition Plan by Eli E. Hertz, Myths and Facts (see also Resolution 181: A “Green Light” for Jewish Statehood, but a ‘Dead’ Blueprint for Peace by Eli E. Hertz and Video, November 29, 1947: The Story of a Vote (10’02”) by Toldot Yisrael, November 2010)

1946-1973 Video: David Ben Gurion, Part 4: “Freedom of Action” (7’40”), Zionism 101, July 2016

1946-1948 The Birth of Israel: U.S. Envoy McDonald’s Tireless Efforts by Shlomo Slonim, Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2019

July 22, 1946: Testimony In British Parliament Proves British Had Advanced Warning of King David Hotel Bombing — and Laughed It Off by Bennett Ruda, Daled Amos, October 25, 2018

1946: How Zionist Extremism Became British Spies’ Biggest Enemy by Calder Walton, Foreign Policy, January 1, 2014

1945-1948 Video: British Mandate Part 5, “Step Ashore” (7’39”), Zionism 101, March 2015

1945: Palestine: Land ownership by sub-district (1945), United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine (UNISPAL), August 1, 1950

1941-1952 Video: Chaim Weizmann Part 4, “War & Statehood” (8’14”), Zionism 101, April 2017

1940-1948 Video, The LEHI Underground (8’29”), Zionism 101, May 2015

1940-1945 Video, The British Mandate, Part III: “The Jewish Brigade” (6’37”), Zionism 101, January 2015

1940: The Land of Israel in 1940 by Rachel Wolf, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), June 19, 2013

July 6, 1939: Excerpts from speech by Rep. John William McCormack (D-Mass.) on a ‘Jewish Homeland’ in Palestine, in A Clear-eyed American View of Palestine in 1939 by Mitchell Bard, The Times of Israel, November 17, 2016

1939: Video: Jerusalem Checkpoint (0’27”)

1937: David Ben Gurion’s letter to his son Amos (and its distortions by Ilan Pappé and the Journal of Palestine Studies), as reported by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), April 9, 2012

1935-1940 Video: Jabotinsky Part 4: “Lone Wolf” (7’50”), Zionism 101, December 2016

1930-1939 Video, The British Mandate, Part II (8’14”), Zionism 101, December 2014

1929-1948 Video: The Jewish Underground: “Irgun” (9’00”), Zionism 101, July 2015

1929: An Arab prince’s [Mohamed Ali Pasha] secret proposal to sell the Western Wall to the Jews by Steven E. Zipperstein, The Times of Israel, January 9, 2020

A quixotic overture by a courageous prince lay hidden in files at the UK Colonial Office for 90 years, where this author discovered it. Now it can proudly take its place in history.

1929: Anniversary of 1929 Hebron Massacre and Ethnic Cleansing of Jews by William A. Jacobson, Legal Insurrection, August 23, 2016

1929: Anti-Jewish Violence in Pre-State Palestine/1929 Massacres by Ricki Hollander, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), August 23, 2009

1928-1939 Video: Chaim Weizmann Part 3: “Ouster and Return” (8’41”), Zionism 101, March 2017

1923: The Iron Wall by Zeev Jabotinsky: “Agreement with Arabs Impossible at present; Zionism Must Go Forward,” Razsviet (translated from Russian), November 4, 1923 [transcribed]

September 21, 1922: U.S. House Joint Resolution 322, Favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people (see also National Home for the Jewish People, House Resolution 360 (Rept. 1172). June 30, 1922. Congressional Record, 1922 U.S. House of Representatives. 9799-9820.) House Joint Resolution 322 became Public Resolution 73 (September 21, 1922: Chapter 372, 42 Stat 1012):

“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christians and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected.”

1922: The Mandate For Palestine Still Relevant Nearly a Century Later by Eli E. Hertz, Myths & Facts, September 11, 2013 (see also Political Rights in Palestine Were Granted to Jews Only and “Mandate for Palestine”: The Legal Aspects of Jewish Rights by Eli E. Hertz, Myths and Facts)

1922 Video: Revival of Hebrew (8’44”), Zionism 101

1920-1948 Video: The Jewish Underground: “Haganah” (8’00”), Zionism 101, July 2015

1920-1933 Video: Jabotinsky Part 3: “Revisionism” (8’06”), Zionism 101, November 2016

1920-1921: Jewish Settlement Legitimized by Eli E. Hertz, Myths and Facts, September 21, 2015 (quotes from An Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine during the period 1st JULY, 1920—30th JUNE, 1921, by High Commissioner Herbert Samuel)

April 19-25, 1920 San Remo Conference

1920: The Year the Arabs Discovered Palestine by Daniel Pipes, Middle East Review, Summer 1989 (see also video, 9’41”, with the same title)

1919-1935 Video: David Ben Gurion, Part 2: “Battle for Authority” (8’45”), Zionism 101, June 2016

1919: Letter from Emir Feisal to Felix Frankfurter (Feisal was the son of Hussen Ibn Ali, Sharif of Mecca; Frankfurter was an associate of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, and later a U.S. Supreme Court Justice)

“We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of powers stronger than themselves, and by a happy coincidence have been able to take the first step towards the attainment of their national ideals together.  The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. […] we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.”

1918-1921 Video: The Jewish Legion (8’48”), Zionism 101

August 1918: The “Ottoman Balfour Declaration”: “A Jewish National Home,” 100 Years On by Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2018

1918 Video: Jerusalem 1918 (8’13”), September 11, 2010

1917-1929 Video: Chaim Weizmann Part 2: “Setbacks” (8’57”), Zionism 101, February 2016

November 1917, Balfour Declaration

April 1917: Ottoman Authority Orders Jews to Evacuate Tel Aviv by David B. Green, Haaretz, April 4, 2017

1916-Present: Palestinian Leaders Don’t Want an Independent State by Efraim Karsh, Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2014

1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement: The Map that Ruined the Middle East by Gabriel Scheinmann, Tower Magazine, July 2013; see also video, Sykes-Picot Agreement was Actually an Obstacle to Zionist Ideals (3’47”), Martin Kramer, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, May 25, 2016

1916 Video: NILI (8’50”), Zionism 101

1916: Seven Pillars of Fiction (review of Scott Anderson’s Lawrence in Arabia) by Efraim Karsh, The Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2013

1914-1918 Video: Unhealed Wounds of World War I: Armenia, Kurdistan, and Palestine (2:01’33”), Rashid Khalidi at Harvard University, November 20, 2014

1910-1911: The 11th Encyclopædia Britannica on Who Is a Palestinian by Daniel Pipes, July 31, 2016

1907 Video: HaShomer (7’07”)

1906-1952: Winston Churchill and the foundation of Israel by Sir Martin Gilbert

1905-1952: Churchill and Dr. Chaim Weizmann: Scientist, Zionist, and Israeli Statesman by Fred Glueckstein, Finest Hour 170, Fall 2015

1904-1917 Video: Chaim Weizmann Part 1: “The Balfour Declaration” (8’51”), Zionism 101, February 2016

1904: First public display of Zionist flag, World’s Fair, St. Louis

1904 Video: Early Zionist Settlement, The Second Aliya (7’10”), Zionism 101

By 1914, there are 94,000 Jews in Eretz Yisrael, a sixth of the Arab population.

1901-1915 Video: Vladimir Jabotinsky Part 1: “An Individualist” (8’48”)

1900-1946 Photos from Israel, Wikimedia Israel

1900: The Land of Israel and Jerusalem in 1900 by Elliott A. Green

1899: Quote from Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, the mayor of Jerusalem, in a letter to Zadok Kahn, Chief rabbi of France

The idea itself is natural, fine and just. Who can challenge the rights of the Jews in Palestine? Good Lord, historically it is really your country. What a wonderful spectacle that will be when a people as resourceful as the Jews will once again be an independent nation, honored and complacent, able to make its contribution to needy humanity in the field of morals, as in the past.

1896-1917 Video: Ben-Gurion Part 1: “Small Beginnings” (8’18”), Zionism 101, October 2015

1898-1904 Video: Herzl Part 4: “The Uganda Proposal” (7’24”), Zionism 101

1895-1897 Video: Theodor Herzl Part 3: “The Zionist Congress” (7’54”), Zionism 101

1894-1904 Video: Theodor Herzl: The Zionist Dream of a Jewish State (9’33”), Jerusalem U

1891: The Blackstone Memorial: A petition (text) signed by hundreds of prominent Americans (including the chief justice of the United States, the speaker of the House of Representatives, future President William McKinley, and scores of influential industrialists, bankers, educators, and journalists) presented to the President of the United States, Benjamin Harrison, urging the restoration of Palestine to Jewish rule. “It is their home, an inalienable possession from which they were expelled by force.”

1882 Video: Early Zionist Settlement (6’42”), Zionism 101

1881 Video: Revival of Hebrew (8’44”) by Zionism 101

1859-1936 Newspaper Archives [pdf] [video, 12’03”]: Over 100 news articles from over 65 newspapers worldwide about Jewish and Arab immigration to Palestine, violence, 1948 war (incl. Deir Yassin “massacre”), refugees (both Arab and Jewish), and more

1847: U.S. Naval officer Francis Lynch report of his voyage to the Holy Land, Narrative of the United States’ Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea

1799: Napoleon’s letter offering Palestine as a homeland to the Jews under French protection (see also This day in history: Napoleon in the Holy Land by Benjamin Glatt, Jerusalem Post, February 25, 2016)

1759: A Map Of Palestine From 1759 by Deebo, IsraellyCool.com, November 14, 2015

1695: A tour and census of Palestine year 1695: No sign of Arabian names or Palestinians by Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, April 28, 2014

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