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Tantura
Until 1948, Tantura (also al-Tantura) was an Arab village on the Mediterranean coast, 30km south of Haifa. In 1948 it was depopulated during the Arab-Israeli war. Since 1998, Tantura has become famous due to allegations that Israeli forces committed a large scale massacre there in May 1948.

History
The village was situated at the place occupied by the Canaanite city Dor since at least the 13th century BC. Later it was occupied by the Greeks and others, until abandonment after the 4th century AD. Much later, the Crusaders built a castle called Merle there. It is not known when the village of Tantura was founded, but it existed by the end of the 18th century when it was burned by Napoleon. In 1855 it was described as having 30-40 houses, and later that century had expanded to about 1200 residents. In 1931 there were 952 Arabs and 1 Jew living there; in 1944/5, 1490 Arabs. The village economy was based on agriculture and fishing, with 1622 tons of fish harvested in 1944.

On May 22-23, 1948, approximately one week after the state of Israel declared its independence, Tantura was captured by the Alexandroni Brigade, a unit of the Israeli Army. Many villagers died during or soon after the battle, and the remainer were expelled. Most ended up in refugee camps in the West Bank or Syria. The village was almost immediately destroyed except for a few buildings, and in June 1948 the Jewish kibbutz of Nachsolim was established nearby. Today the site of the village is a beach recreational area.

Allegations of a Massacre
A book by Muhammad Nimr al-Khatib published in 1950 quoted two eye-witnesses from Tantura as saying that a group of 40 young men of the village had been systematically executed and buried in a mass grave. However these claims drew little attention, even from Palestinian historians.

In 1988, the Israeli Teddy Katz submitted a Masters thesis to Haifa University claiming to document a massacre of up to several hundred Arabs after the capture of Tantura. Katz's claim was supported by the oral testimony of several veterans of the Alexandroni Brigade and of many Arabs who were former residents of Tantura or neighboring villages. Katz was awarded the degree with an A+ grade. A summary of the thesis, and some independent investigation, was published by the newspaper Maariv in 2000 and caused an outcry. The organization of Alexandroni veterans sued Katz for defamation. During the first two days of the trial, it was revealed that Katz could not support some of his claimed testimonies, and indeed in a few cases the recordings of the interviews appeared to contradict the reports that Katz had made of them.

At this point, Katz signed a statement repudiating his own work. The statement said that Katz "beyond any doubt [believed that] there is no basis for the allegation that the Alexandroni Brigade ... committed killings of people in Tantura after the village surrendered". Twelve hours later, Katz changed his mind and attempted to withdraw his statement but the court refused to accept the withdrawal and ruled the case against him. Katz then appealed to the High Court, asking it to direct the lower court to reopen the case, but it declined to do so.

Meanwhile, Katz's degree had been suspended by Haifa University and he was invited to submit a revised thesis. He did so, with a much expanded thesis that still contained allegations of a massacre at Tantura. Five examiners were asked to read it, but three gave it a failing grade. The university then awarded Katz a "second-class" degree.

--the testimony (waiting for the English edition of the revised thesis; any day now)

--investigation by Morris

Etymology of the name Jerusalem
The origin and meaning of the name "Jerusalem" cannot be established with certainty, though there are many theories.

Despite earlier claims, Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Ebla tablets. The earliest known plausible reference to Jerusalem appears in Egyptian execration texts of the 19th and 18th centuries BCE, when Jerusalem was a small walled city. Egyptian inscriptions can be read in multiple ways, but one recurring inscription can be read as (U)rushalimum and is commonly thought to refer to Jerusalem. An 18th century Sumerian reference to Urusilimma has also been claimed. However, in both cases, other readings have been proposed that don't refer to Jerusalem at all. [1,2,9,10]

The first uncontested reference to Jerusalem appears in the Amarna Letters of the 14th century. There are 6 letters from Abdi-Heba, king of "Urusalim" and some others that refer to him. The identification of Urusalim with Jerusalem has been confirmed by scientific examination of the clay tablets on which the letters are written. Palestine was then part of the Egyptian New Kingdom, but very little trace of settlement in Jerusalem at the time the letters were written has been unearthed. Perhaps the name refered to a region, or perhaps the settlement was very small. [1,3,4]

The name Urusalim is usually interpretted as "City of Salim". Since Canaanite cities were often named after gods, the majority opinion of scholars is that Salim here is the Canaanite god of that name who is attested to in many West Semitic sources. The most information about Salim (Shalem, Salimmu, Shalman, etc) comes from the Ras Shamra (Ugarit) archives. There, the two gods Shachar and Shalem are said to be the twin children of the god El. They are identified with the dawn and the dusk, respectively, though many scholars believe they represented the morning and evening stars. Several scholars have claimed to see direct evidence of Shalem worship at Jerusalem, but these claims are controversial. [1,2,5,6,11,12]

Variants of Urusalim (Assyrian Ursali-immu, Aramaic Urishlem, Mandaic Urashelam, Syriac Urishlem, Arabic Aurishalamu) appeared during the following centuries, but the Hebrew Bible adopted a somewhat different form. It would later be vocalized by the Masoretes as Yerushalaim or Yerushalayim, but originally the pronunciation was most probably Yerushalem. Scientific scholars overwhelmingly associate the "shalem" of Yerushalem with the salim of Urusalim, but the prefix Yeru is more problematic. Many suggestions have been made, but none can be positively proven. An earlier theory, which is now unfashionable, notes that yeru in Sumerian means "settlement", conveniently similar to the uru (city) of Urusalim. Another attempts to derive it from the name Yevus by which the city is called in Jg. 19:10 (after the Jebusites). Some writers have suggested that the origin lies with the word yerusha (heritage). However, the most popular theory today is that yeru comes from the word yarah (to lay a cornerstone, as in Job 38:6). If this theory is correct, "Jerusalem" means something like "Foundation of Shalem". [1,6,7]

Writers who doubt the connection of the name of Jerusalem with the god Shalem have looked for alternative etymologies. The Hebrew word shalem (complete, perfect) is the obvious choice, and the similar word shalom (peace) also suggests itself. By this path, many variations like the popular "City of Peace" have arisen.


 * [1] L. Grabbe, Ethnic groups in Jerusalem, in ''Jerusalem in Ancient History and Tradition (Clark International, 2003) pp145-163.
 * [2] N. Na'aman, Canaanite Jerusalem and its central hill country neighbours in the second millenium B.C.E., Ugarit-Forschungen Vol. 24 (1992), pp275-291.
 * [3] Y. Goren, I. Finkelstein and N. Na'aman, Petrographic investigation of the Amarna Tablets, Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 65, Iss. 3 (2002), p196.
 * [4] M. Steiner, It's not there: Archaeology proves a negative, Biblical Archaeology Review. Jul/Aug 1998
 * [5] N. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit (Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).
 * [6] G. A. Smith, Jerusalem (Hodder & Staughton, 1907).
 * [7] M. Ben-Dov, Historical Atlas of Jerusalem (Continuum, 2002).
 * [8] K. van der Toorn, R. Becking and P. W. van der Horst, editors, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, revised edn. (Lieden, 1999).
 * [9] G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, Theological dictionary of the New Testament (Erdmans, 1971).
 * [10] J. Muhly, Ur and Jerusalem not mentioned in Ebla tablets, say Ebla expedition scholars, Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov/Dec 1983, pp74-75.
 * [11] M. Astour, Greek names in the Semitic world and Semitic names in the Greek world, J. Near Eastern Stud., Vol 23, No 3 (1964) 193-201.
 * [12] J. Lewy, The Sulman temple in Jerusalem, Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 59 (1940) 519-522.

Notes (not part of the article at the moment)

 * The paper of M. Astour, Greek names in the Semitic world and Semitic names in the Greek world, J. Near Eastern Stud., Vol 23, No 3 (1964) 193-201 says the following on page 198: [diacritics missing] "We know that Shr, the Dawn, was a West Semitic god, the brother of Slm, Dusk. We also know that the latter deity was worshiped in the pre-Israelite Jerusalem as the goddess Sulmitu or Sulmanitu." The citation given is B&ouml;hl, Opera minora 380-83, 517-18.  The latter is an obscure book published in German in 1953 and I don't have a copy.  I have a lead on an alternative source but didn't find it yet.  Some of this material is very difficult for a non-specialist to understand.
 * Unfortunately, some of literature on this subject was written by Velakowskyites. It can't be trusted, but on the other hand they quote a lot of genuine scientific articles which can be independently consulted.  There is also some written by modern pagans, especially on the web.
 * Miscellaneous secondary and tertiary literature:
 * JPS Torah Commentary, Genesis, p110: 'The name originally meant "foundation of (the god) Shalim"'
 * The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 25-48 (New International Commentary on the Old Testament) by Daniel I. Block, p739
 * "Modern scholars take these names to mean "founded by the god Shalem", a god of the Ammorites... In time, however, the second part of the name became associated with shalom (peace) in Hebrew minds and Jerusalem came to mean "city of peace", New Unger's Bible Dictionary, p675.
 * The Israelites in History and Tradition, by Niels Lemche. "The city of Shalem", ca p48 has discussion. On p184 seems to doubt the connection to Shalim.
 * Jewish Encyclopedia (ca 1903):  "Several etymologies for the word have been suggested; e.g., <>= possession of peace" or "of Salem"; <> "foundation of peace" or "of Shalem [God of peace]"; according to the Midrash it is made up of "Shalem," the name given to the city by Shem, and Yir'eh," that given to it by Abraham (Gen. R. lvi. 10; Midr. Teh. to Ps. lxxvi. 3). A more plausible derivation makes it the equivalent of "Uru-shalim" (="City of [the god] Shalim"; comp. the Assyrian god Shalman or Shulman, the Phenician <> [Greek Σαλαμαν], and the Egyptian Sharamana [Zimmern, in "K. A. T." 3d ed., pp. 224, 475; Praetorius, in "Z. D. M. G." lvii. p. 782), "Uri" having become "Yeru" by metathesis (see Haupt in "Isaiah," in "S. B. O. T." Eng. transl., p. 100).


 * In the Armana letters, 5 out of 7 times the name is not written as urusalim, but rather as uruurusalim (where uru is the sign, called a determinative, that indicates a city name follows). The other two times it is written urusalim without a determinative. This indicates that "uru" was considered part of the city name. See here. Apparently there is an image at BAR, Vol. 24, Jul/Aug 1998, p. 43; Also Vol. 29, May/Jun 2003, p. 55.
 * The rituals and myths of the feast of the goodly gods of KTU/CAT 1.23: royal ... By Mark S. Smith : stuff on Shahar and Shalim.
 * George A. Barton, A Liturgy for the Celebration of the Spring Festival at Jerusalem in the Age of Abraham and Melchizedek, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Apr., 1934), pp. 61-78. - conjectural etymology
 * Nissim Amzallag, Yahweh, the Canaanite God of Metallurgy?, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 2009; 33; 387. - association of Shalem and Jerusalem.
 * H.O. Thompson, Mekal, the God of Beth-Shan (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), p. 160. - shalem -> Jerusalem, Solomon, Absolom, etc.
 * The faith of the Old Testament: a history By Werner H. Schmidt (1983) - "foundation of the god Shalem" p209-210.
 * Both the old and new editions of Encyclopedia Judaica support the "Shalem" version.

Nishidani's text
Two hieroglyphic texts dated to the 19th.and18th.centuries BCE, one on a ceramic bowl, the other on a terra cotta figure, which mention a rw-u-šl-m-m, transcribed as either Rušalimum or Urušalimum, are commonly thought to be the first historic references to the city. These form part of the Egyptian Execration Texts, where Egypt’s enemies were named only to be cursed. . The name recurs in the Akkadian cuneiform as Urušalim, in the Amarna tablets datable to the 1400-1360 BCE. The god Shalem,who was a member of the West Semitic pantheon (Akkadian Shalim, Assyrian Shulmanu), the god of the setting sun and the nether world, as well as of health and perfection, appears to have had a special relationship with Jerusalem. . The name 'Jerusalem' may have meant 'foundation (Sumerian yeru, ‘settlement’/cf. Semitic yry, meaning ‘found’) of the god Shalem. Others dismiss the Sumerian link, and point to yarah, a Semitic/Hebrew term meaning 'to lay a cornerstone', yielding the idea of laying a cornerstone to the temple of the god Shalem. Later, through association with the meaning of 'peace' in the root š-l-m, it was also interpreted as meaning, variously, 'dwelling of peace', or 'founded in safety' ,as well as 'Salem gives instruction' (Semitic yrh: 'show, teach, instruct').

Bits and pieces
After the 1929 "disturbances", the British authorities fined the Hebron community 14,000 pounds (Pal. Post. Dec 15, 1932). The final evacuation of the Hebron Jews: Pal. Post April 20-23, 1936. July 12, 1933: Although for economic reasons no settlement scheme was initiated in Hebron, after the riots, it was decided not to abandon Hebron as a Jewish centre. People returned, newcomers joined them, and to-day...a second storey is being constructed by the Sephardi community. We note with satisfaction the presence of Arab notables at the stone-laying foundation...".

Ref for Syria in the 1948-war:

Rachel's tomb

 * Rachel weeping: Jews, Christians, and Muslims at the Fortress Tomb By Frederick M. Strickert - google&amazon
 * Corpus inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, (CIAP) By Moshe Sharon
 * The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: L-Z (exluding Tyre) By Denys Pringle
 * Biblical researches in Palestine and the adjacent regions: a ..., Volume 1 By Edward Robinson, Eli Smith
 * Anchor bible dictionary

Types of mandates
The League of Nations decided the exact level of control by the Mandatory power over each mandate on an individual basis. However, in every case the Mandatory power was forbidden to construct fortifications or raise an army within the territory of the mandate, and was required to present an annual report on the territory to the League of Nations.

The mandates were divided into three distinct groups based upon the level of development each population had achieved at that time.

Class A mandates
The "A" mandates were those established in accordance with paragraph 4 of Article 22 of the Covenant:
 * "Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognised subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory."

In January 1920 when the Covenant was adopted, it had not yet been decided which "certain communities" would be subject to mandate. At the San Remo conference in April 1920, Palestine and Mesopotamia were awarded to Great Britain, and Syria to France. Later in 1920, the Allied Powers decided to not establish mandates in Central Arabia, Hejaz, Asir, Yemen or El-Hasa, leaving only the initial three. Armenia was offered to the United States, but it declined. The Class A mandates were:
 * Mesopotamia (United Kingdom), from 10 August 1920 – 3 October 1932. The mandate subsequently became the independent Kingdom of Iraq.


 * Palestine (United Kingdom), from 29 September 1923 – 15 May 1948. In April 1921, Transjordan became an autonomous area. It eventually became the independent Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan (later Jordan) on 25 May 1946. A plan for peacefully dividing the remainder of the Mandate failed. The Mandate ended at midnight on 14 May 1948, and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War began. Following the war, 75% of the area west of the Jordan River was controlled by the new State of Israel. Other parts, until 1967, formed the West Bank of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. Small slivers of territory east and south of the Sea of Galilee were held by Syria.


 * Syria (France), 29 September 1923 – 1 January 1944. This mandate included Lebanon; Hatay (a former Ottoman Alexandretta sandjak) broke away from it and became a French protectorate until it was ceded to the new Republic of Turkey. Following the termination of the French mandate, two separate independent republics, Syria and Lebanon, were formed.

The status of Palestine as an "A" mandate was the official position of the League of Nations, the British government, and the US Department of State. The Permanent Court of International Justice ruled in 1925 that the Palestine mandate was established under paragraph 4 of Article 22 of the Covenant and the International Court of Justice advised in 2004 that it was a class A mandate.

Nation Associates
The Nation has lost money in all but three or four years of operation and is sustained in part by a group of more than 30,000 donors called Nation Associates, who donate funds to the periodical above and beyond their annual subscription fees. This program accounts for 30% of the total revenue for the magazine. An annual cruise also generates $200,000 for the magazine. Since late 2012, the Nation Associates program has been called Nation Builders.

Nation Associates and the creation of Israel
The magazine's financial problems in early 1940s prompted Kirchwey to sell her individual ownership of the magazine in 1943, creating a nonprofit organization, Nation Associates, formed out of the money generated from a recruiting drive of sponsors. This organization was also responsible for academic responsibilities, including conducting research and organizing conferences, that had been a part of the early history of the magazine. Nation Associates became responsible for the operation and publication of the magazine on a nonprofit basis, with Kirchwey as both president of Nation Associates and editor of The Nation magazine.

During the period 1945–1948, Nation Associates under the leadership of Frida Kirchwey was one of the leading US groups campaigning for the creation of the state of Israel. Together with Nation Associates director Lillie Schultz, the former chief administrator of the American Jewish Congress who had joined The Nation in 1944, she campaigned for the Zionist cause in coordination with the Jewish Agency. They pressured the United Nations over the composition of the Special Committee on Palestine. They lobbied all UN members to promote a UN vote to establish independent Jewish and Arab states in Palestine, arguing against both Zionist and Arab proposals for a unitary state.

During the 1947–1948 period, Nation Associates distributed a sequence of booklets designed to promote the Zionist cause in Palestine. One of the most prominent booklets was a dossier on the war-time collaboration between several Palestinian leaders and Nazi Germany, called The Arab Higher Committee, Its Origins, Personnel and Purposes. Much of the material came from classified files held by the State Department and provided by a friendly source. Five thousand copies were printed and distributed to all 55 UN delegates in addition to the White House and all members of Congress.

Kirchwey claimed credit for pressuring the Republic of China to abstain when the UN voted to partition Palestine in November 1947, as well as helping to influence the favorable votes of Yugoslavia, Haiti and Liberia.

The pro-Zionist efforts of Nation Associates were supported by a secret grant of $50,000 from the American section of the Jewish Agency. After Israel declared independence in May 1948, the Israeli government thanked Kirchwey for "having a good and honorable share of our success".



Bodansky
I am removing:
 * Nevertheless, pogroms spread through the Middle East and North Africa: Aleppo (1850, 1875), Damascus (1840, 1848, 1890), Beirut (1862, 1874), Dayr al-Qamar (1847), Jaffa (1876), Jerusalem (1847, 1870 and 1895), Cairo (1844, 1890, 1901–02), Mansura (1877), Alexandria (1870, 1882, 1901–07), Port Said (1903, 1908), and Damanhur (1871, 1873, 1877, 1891). —— Yossef Bodansky. Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument Co-Produced by The Ariel Center for Policy Research and The Freeman Center for Strategic Studies, 1999. ISBN 978-0-9671391-0-4, see also The Encyclopedia of World History By Peter N. Stearns, William Leonard Langer p. 527. 2001.

Reasons: I have information on most of the other incidents too, but enough is enough. Zerotalk 03:32, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) Yossef Bodansky is not a historian but a neocon with a penchant for conspiracy theories. He is best known for his ultra-fringe claim that Osama bin-Laden had nuclear weapons (see his article).
 * 2) The individual items Jerusalem (1870, 1895) and Jaffa (1876) come not from Bodansky but from the weak tertiary encyclopedia that is not an acceptable source. In any case, it does not confirm pogroms in those years and I challenge anyone to prove that they happened. I searched multiple detailed sources including contemporary Jewish newspapers. There is also a direct statement in the Shaw Commission report that no such thing happened (p150).
 * 3) Leaving those three items aside, the list was added in 2007 and soon pruned to remove non-Arab locations. Looking at the original list, we see a perfect match with Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, p158. This is evidently Bodansky's source, and Lewis is reliable. However, Lewis does not identify them as pogroms but as blood libels. Blood libels may or may not be accompanied by pogroms, so let's look at a few examples.
 * 4) Jerusalem 1847. There is a detailed account on pages 107–110 of James and Elizabeth Finn, Stirring Times, Vol 1. Summary from Simon Montefiore, Biography of Jerusalem: "In 1847, a Christian Arab boy attacked a Jewish youth who threw back a pebble which grazed the Arab boy’s foot. The Greek Orthodox traditionally the most anti-Semitic community, quickly backed by the Muslim mufti and qadi, accused the Jews of procuring Christian blood to bake the Passover biscuits: the blood libel had come to Jerusalem, but the sultan’s ban, granted to Montefiore after the Damascus affair, proved decisive." No actual violence mentioned in either source. No pogrom.
 * 5) Cairo 1844. Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, p106: "Muslims in Cairo accused the Jews of murdering a Christian for his blood. This time, however, Muhammad Ali quickly stepped in to prevent any violence and to see that justice was done." Encyclopedia Judaica, v15, p530: "In 1844 a blood libel occurred in Egypt when the Jews of Cairo were accused of murdering a Christian. Only the firmness of Muhammad Ali prevented the outbreak of violence." No pogrom.
 * 6) Mansura 1877. Jacob Landau, The Jews in nineteenth-century Egypt, p39: (summary) After a Muslim child disappeared, the Jews were accused and a mob came to search for the child in the synagogue and Jewish homes. The child was found elsewhere and the Muslim inciters were given a large fine. This event was undoubtedly terrifying for the Jews, but neither Landau nor the primary source he gives (La Levanon, May 16, 1877, p320) mention any injuries. No pogrom.
 * 7) Alexandria 1870. Jacob Landau, The Jews in nineteenth-century Egypt, pp182–183: (summary) A Maltese citizen accused a Jew of kidnapping his daughter. The Jew was arrested and put on trial. No pogrom.
 * 8) Dayr al-Qamar 1847. Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, p106: A blood libel by local Maronites did not "[end] in tragedy". No pogrom.
 * 9) Aleppo 1850. Yaron Harel. Jewish-Christian Relations in Aleppo as Background for the Jewish Response to the Events of October 1850, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp77–96 provides a very detailed account. Muslim rioters attacked the Christian quarter, killing many. The riots were put down with much death and destruction. Harel shows that reports that the Jewish quarter was also attacked were not true, based on a contemporary Jewish account and other evidence. Harel shows that the riots resulted from Muslim political hatred of Christians, and on this matter the Jews sided with the Muslims. "Moreover, Muslims encouraged Jews to take revenge on their Christian enemies when the latter harassed them with libelous accusations". Harel mentions a blood libel made by Christians in 1853, but "[t]he court, composed of three Muslim notables, ruled unequivocally that the accusation was a libelous falsehood". No pogrom.
 * 10) My aim is to discredit the claim that Bodansky's list is a list of pogroms. I don't intend to give the impression that there was never any violence against Jews. Some of these blood libels led to violence, but I did not find any examples involving mass casualties and none called pogroms by academic sources. The usual is like Damanhur 1873. Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, pp426–7: "the native Turks entered the School, beating the Jews who were found there, breaking the Ark of the Holy Law". In Port Said 1892, a Greek mob inflamed by rumors that Jews had kidnapped a Greek girl beat up an elderly Jew who then died of shock. Windows were broken, rioters arrested, no other serious injuries (Jacob M. Landau, Ritual murder accusations and persecutions of Jews in 19th century Egypt, Sefunot, v5 1961, 417–460). No pogrom.