text:
IV. Zionist Colonization
Note of the Editorial Board: The following chapter contains two maps. For technical reasons these can only be viewed in the pdf version of the book which can be downloaded here.
The defenders of Zionism claim that the idea of Zionism of granting the Jews a state is morally sound in particular after the extermination of 6 million Jews by the Nazis, and the growing Anti-Semitism. The only problem is that it was implement without due regard to the rights of the Palestinians. The same of course could be said about South Africa, Nigeria, Australia, Algeria Vietnam, Cambodia, Latin America, India, China the USA and many others. The fact however is that if colonialism in all its forms could be implemented without the repression, the murder, the theft of the lands and the natural resources, it would not be colonialism. In Hebrew they used to say "if my grandmother had wheels instead of legs she would not need a bus".
Thus the real question is whether the Zionists are settler colonialists or, as the Zionists claim, it is the nation that was exiled 2000 years ago that has returned to its ancient land and the Palestinians that have lived for generations in Palestine are the real settler colonialists. To believe the Zionist narrative you must believe in fairytales as well. What would you say about a person who takes over your house claiming that it belongs to him because his ancient grandfathers 2000 years ago lived on the land your house is built on, and then in his generosity offers you the washroom as your place and asks you to announce that the house belongs to him?
The first leader of the Jewish Zionists movement was Theodore Herzl. However, the Zionist ideology did not begin with Herzl or the Jews. It began with Christian Zionism. Christian Zionism began among Protestants of the 16th century and 17th century in England. In 1607, Thomas Brightman published a book by the name "Revelation of the Revelation", where he spoke of the return of the Jews to Palestine. Isaac de la Peyrere (1594-1676), the French Ambassador to Denmark, wrote a similar book by the name "Rappel des Juifs".
In the 18th century, the Christian Zionist Movement, under the name "Restoration Movement", was led by Thomas Newton, the Bishop of Bristol who preached the same idea.
In the 19th century one of the leaders of the Christian Zionists was Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury and a member of the Tory party. Shaftesbury argued for a Jewish return as a way to advance the economic and political interests of England. In 1853 Shaftesbury wrote to the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, that Greater Syria was "a country without a nation" in need of "a nation without a country... Is there such a thing? To be sure there is, the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!" [1] This is of course the origin of the Zionist slogan coined by the British Jewish Zionist Israel Zangwill: "A land without people for people without a land".
One of the Christian Zionists was the Chaplin William H. Hechler who worked with Herzl and attended the first Zionist Congress. [2]
The Christian Zionists influenced Balfour and his known declaration of 1917 in which Arthur Balfour wrote that the British government viewed "with favor the establishment of a Jewish national home" in Palestine. Another known Christian Zionist was Orde Wingate who trained the Zionist terrorist organization "night operation". He said: "There is only one way to deal with the situation, to persuade the gangs that, in their predatory raids, there is every chance of their running into a government gang which is determined to destroy them. The units would carry the offensive to the enemy, take away his initiative and keep him off-balance, and ...produce in their minds the belief government forces will move at night and can and will surprise them either in villages or across country." [3]
Thus, in the case of Christian Zionism the Gospel became the ideology of imperialism colonialism and militarism. David Lloyd-George was even more pro Zionist than Balfour. From Great Britain Christian Zionism moved to the USA where it was adopted by a number of Protestant theologians including the evangelist Dwight Moody, C.I. Schofiled and William E Blackstone. The Christian Zionists saw the wars of 1948 and 1967 as miracles of God and the beginning of the end of times which is a period of wars, destructions and the building of the Jewish third temple. They are hard supporters of Zionist apartheid in the whole of Palestine. According to their belief system Jesus will return to reign on Earth after an epic battle between good and evil. The Zionists are the good and the Muslims are the bad. The Evangelical leader Pat Robertson while on his tour of Israel during the Israel-Lebanon war said, "The Jews are God's chosen people. Israel is a special nation that has a special place in God's heart. He will defend this nation. So Evangelical Christians stand with Israel. That is one of the reasons I am here." [4]
In addition to the Christian Zionists, Napoleon Bonaparte advocated a Jewish autonomy under French protection in Palestine in 1799 during his battle in Acre as part of his war with the Ottoman Empire.
He wrote: "The great nation which does not trade in men and countries as did those which sold your ancestors unto all people (Joel 4:6) herewith calls on you not indeed to conquer your patrimony; nay, only to take over that which has been conquered and, with that nation's warranty and support, to remain master of it to maintain it against all comers." [5]
The Zionist program of removing the Jews from Europe and settle them in Palestine was accepted by the Anti-Semites with open arms.
One of the known Anti Semite document is the "Protocol of the Elder of Zion" that claims that the Jews ruled the word. Another document less known stated:
"The wealthy Jews rule the world. In their hands lies the fate of governments and nations. They start wars between countries and, when they wish, governments make peace. When the wealthy Jews sing, the nations and their leaders dance along and meanwhile the Jews get richer". It was written by Herzl in an article he wrote in the Deutsche Zeitung newspaper. [6]
Hitler did not fear retribution for the Holocaust. Why? He didn't think the world would care, asking, as he prepared to invade Poland "Who today still speaks of the massacre of the Armenians"? [7]
In 1915 many people were not aware of the genocide of the Armenians. Herzl helped to hide the massacres of the Armenians: In 1896, Herzl made a trip to Constantinople in an attempt to meet Sultan Abdul Hamid to negotiate the purchase of Palestine. The Sultan did not meet him at that time but his aides asked Herzl if he could work on the Armenian issue in the European press? Turkey was getting bashed for its treatment of the Armenians and Herzl agreed to do so. [8]
Joseph Massad, a professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University and the author of the book "Islam in Liberalism", wrote on the emerging alliance between Zionists and European ultra-nationalists and reflected on an ongoing historical development that dates back to the late 19th century.
In an interview he said: "Israel has no problem allying itself with anti-Semites who support its colonialism." Massad detailed the collaboration between Theodore Herzl with anti-Semites like Vyacheslav von Plehve, who oversaw brutal pogroms as the police chief of imperial Russia. "Arthur Balfour, supported Zionism "notwithstanding or precisely because of his anti-Semitic sentiment".
"Zionists like Herzl and anti-Semites like Balfour shared the view that the presence of assimilationist-minded Jews on the continent was unacceptable. Herzl "disdained poor Jews in Western Europe and blamed them for anti-Semitism."
"Like Herzl, anti-Semitic European elites viewed a Jewish state as a convenient means for reducing the Jewish population within their societies. "Anti-Semites saw in Zionism a kindred spirit and they shared with other Zionists the understanding that getting rid of European Jews somewhere else is a goal that they share."
"The alliance deepened during World War Two, as the Zionist movement broke the international Jewish boycott of Nazi Germany to embark on a lucrative Transfer Agreement with Hitler's government that exchanged Jewish property for the bodies the Zionists needed to colonize Palestine. Eichmann was a guest of the Zionist movement in 1937, hosted for a tour of kibbutzim in historic Palestine by a double Zionist-Nazi agent Feibl Folkes.
Eichmann quoted Folkes to the effect that Zionist leaders were pleased by the persecution of European Jewry, since it would encourage emigration to Palestine," the Israeli historian Tom Segev observed in his book 'The Seventh Million'". [9]
Richard Silverstein in the Jewish Magazine Tikun Olam wrote: "Eichmann didn't just visit Palestine in 1937 to meet with the Zionist leadership. He didn't just serve as the lead Nazi in implementing the Haavara Agreement. He actually endorsed Zionism and did so with fulsome praise. This New York Times review of In Memory's Kitchen: "A Legacy From the Women of Terezin" quotes the memory of a Terezin survivor who met Eichmann: Anny Stern was one of the lucky ones. In 1939, after months of hassle with the Nazi bureaucracy, the occupying German Army at her heels, she fled Czechoslovakia with her young son and immigrated to Palestine. At the time of Anny's departure, Nazi policy encouraged emigration. ''Are you a Zionist?" Adolph Eichmann, Hitler's specialist on Jewish affairs, asked her. "Jawohl," she replied. "Good," he said, "I am a Zionist, too. I want every Jew to leave for Palestine." there is an even more explosive story told of Eichmann's self-identification with Zionism. It was published in Life Magazine in 1960 under the title, I Transported Them to the Butcher: Eichmann's Story: "In the years that followed (after 1937) I often said to Jews with whom I had dealings that, had I been a Jew, I would have been a fanatical Zionist. I could not imagine anything else. In fact, I would have been the most ardent Zionist imaginable." [10]
Francis R. Nicosia book "Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany'" does not hide the collaboration of the Zionists with the Nazis but he tried to excuse it by pointing out to the unequal relations between the Nazis and the Zionists.
"In the end, the relationship between Zionism and anti-Semitism in Germany helped to define what each was and, perhaps more importantly, what each was not during the period of about half a century before the onset of the final solution" (p. 9). "Thus, the policies of Hitler's regime toward Zionism and the Zionist movement in Germany before 1941, as examples of the implementation of its anti-Semitic ideology, only diminish the likelihood that the 'final solution' was part of an earlier plan or intention to ultimately mass murder the Jews of Europe" (pp. 10-11). "Throughout the 1930s, as part of the regime's determination to force the Jews to leave Germany, there was almost unanimous support in German government and Nazi party circles for promoting Zionism among German Jews, and Jewish emigration from Germany to Palestine" (p. 79).
The Nazis view Zionism as "an important instrument in addressing both parts of the process of reversing Jewish emancipation and assimilation in Germany and ending Jewish life in the Reich through emigration." (p. 105).
Of course the Zionists had less power than the Nazis but having less power and collaborating willfully with the Nazis are two different things.
For the Zionists collaborating with the Nazis was justifiable as long as this helped the Zionist colonial project even when it cost the lives of many Jews. The aims determine the means. Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, said in 1938: "If I knew it was possible to save all [Jewish] children of Germany by their transfer to England and only half of them by transferring them to Eretz-Yisrael, I would choose the latter—because we are faced not only with the accounting of these [Jewish] children but also with the historical accounting of the Jewish People." [11]
The Zionist reactionary ambition of colonizing Palestine was not the only option open to Jews. In the end of the 19th century the socialist movement was a strong movement and it opposed Anti-Semitism. In France the progressive movement defended Dreyfus. The Bolshevik revolution fought against Anti-Semitism.
The Zionists however preferred to serve the imperialists. In his diary Herzl wrote: "Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency. If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finances of Turkey. We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism." [12]
In 1937 Trotsky wrote: "The Jewish question, I repeat, is indissolubly bound up with the complete emancipation of humanity. Everything else that is done in this domain can only be a palliative and often even a two-edged blade, as the example of Palestine shows." [13]
Zionism and British Imperialism
In 1915 the British imperialists promised Hussein, the Sheriff of Mecca, in letters, known as McMahon–Hussein Correspondence, independence from the Turks for military support. At the same time behind the backs of the Arabs the British imperialists with France and Russia agreed to divide the Ottoman Empire amongst themselves in a deal known as The Sykes-Picot agreement. At the same time in 1917 the British came with Balfour Declaration promising the Zionist a national home in Palestine. At the end of the war France got Syria, North Iraq and Lebanon and the British got Palestine and South Iraq. The Russian got nothing because of the Bolshevik revolution, which published the secret agreements. [14]
Map 1 and 2 show what the British promised the Arabs and what the latter finally got after the end of World War I.
Map 1. British Promises of Arab Independence (1915)
Map 2. Arab Countries Occupied by Britain and France after World War One
The Zionists rely on Balfour Declaration as a legal document that legalizes the establishment of the state of Israel.
In the web site of the Israeli foreign Ministry we find: "During the First World War, British policy became gradually committed to the idea of establishing a Jewish home in Palestine (Eretz Yisrael). After discussions in the British Cabinet, and consultation with Zionist leaders, the decision was made known in the form of a letter by Arthur James Lord Balfour to Lord Rothschild. The letter represents the first political recognition of Zionist aims by a Great Power." [15]
This letter raises the question: What were the reasons for Balfour Declaration?
Britain wanted the United States to join World War I and the British Government as typical Anti-Semites believed that Jews can influence the United State to join the war. In 1916, Balfour wrote Chaim Weizmann: "You know Dr Weizmann, if the Allies win the war you may get your Jerusalem." [16] Another reason was to use the Russian Jews to influence the Kerensky government to continue the war alongside the allies. [17] After the Bolshevik revolution British imperialism hoped to turn the Jews against the revolution. In addition the British government wanted to use the Jews to help to control the Suez Canal the route to India. For the same reason they offered the Zionist earlier part of Uganda to guard the British railways. The British imperialists had the experience in Ireland which they controlled by settling there the protestants.
One of the Zionist claims is that the Zionist movement is the national liberation movement of the Jews: "Zionism is a modern national liberation movement whose roots go far back to Biblical times. Its purpose is to return to the Jewish people the independence and sovereignty which are the right of every people. The Jews lost that independence and sovereignty in the Judaeo-Roman war two thousand years ago". [18]
In the first century Rome occupied Judea and ruled it for six hundred years, and lost it to the Muslims. Would any sane person accept an Italian claims to Palestine that was part of ancient Rome? The Assyrians of our days claim that they are the unbroken continuity of the Assyrian people from the times of the Assyrian empire to the present time. Assyria occupied the Israeli kingdom 3000 years ago, would any sane person accept a claim by the Assyrian to Palestine? Yet many people around the world believe that the Zionists have a legitimate claim on Palestine. The reason is that the imperialists and their mass media see in Israel the front line of reaction which is useful to prevent any progressive change of the Middle East. Israel's willingness to take military action in its own neighborhood makes it an unparalleled strategic asset for the West.
Israel by its own admission admits that it has killed close to 100,000 Arabs. It does not distinguish between soldiers and civilians and most of the Arabs who were killed were civilians.
Table 3. Statistics: Total Casualties, Arab-Israeli Conflict [19]
Event Year(s) Jews/Israelis Arabs/Palestinians
Killed Wounded Killed± Wounded
Arab Riots 1920 6 200
Arab Riots 1921 43
Arab Riots 1924 133 116
Arab Riots 1929 135 399 87 91
Arab Riots 1936-39 415 5,000 15,000
War of Independence 1948 6,373 15,000 10,000
Sinai Campaign 1956 231 900 3,000 4,500
Six Day War 1967 776 2,586 18,300
War of Attrition 1968-70 1,424 2,700 5,000
Yom Kippur War 1973 2,688 19,000
First Lebanon War 1982 1,216 2,383 20,825 30,000
First Intifada 1987-93 200 1,162
Second Intifada 2000-2005 1,100 8,000 4,907 8,611
Second Lebanon War 2006 164 1,489 1,954 4,400
Operation Cast Lead 2008-09 14 1,272 1,434 5,000
Operation Pillar of Defense 2012 6 240 158
Operation Protective Edge 2014 73 664 2,100 11,000
Terrorism/Other 1860-Present 9,927
TOTAL: 24,969 36,260 91,105 78,038
The number of Arabs Israel killed is most likely even higher as this account does not include those wounded who died.
Let us return to Balfour Declaration. How relying on a letter of a British imperialist to Lord Rothschild is sitting with the phony statement that the Zionist is or was a national liberation i.e. an anti-imperialist movement? Furthermore this letter is not addressed to the Zionist movement but to Lord Rothschild, which does not make it an official British government document. In addition it does not speak about a Zionist state but about Zionist autonomy under a British protectorate in Palestine.
The Balfour Declaration was opposed by the non- Zionist Jewish communities who saw themselves nationals of their countries. Sir Edwin Montagu, Secretary of State for India who was the only Jewish member of the British Cabinet opposed the declaration on the ground that Jews do not constitute a nation he wrote:
"Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom,… it seems to be inconceivable that Zionism should be officially recognized by the British Government, and that Mr. Balfour should be authorized to say that Palestine was to be reconstituted as the 'national home of the Jewish people'. I do not know what this involves, but I assume that it means that Mohammedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews, and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mohammedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners… I deny that Palestine is today associated with the Jews or properly to be regarded as a fit place for them to live in. The Ten Commandments were delivered to the Jews on Sinai. It is quite true that Palestine plays a large part in Jewish history, but so it does in modern Mohammedan history, and, after the time of the Jews, surely it plays a larger part than any other country in Christian history ..." [20]
Following the Treaty of Versailles the Allied Powers decided at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to impose on the Arabs including in Palestine the mandates system introduced by the Covenant of the League of Nations, a body Lenin called a "den of thieves". He wrote:
"The Soviet revolution in Germany will strengthen the international Soviet movement, which is the strongest bulwark (and the only reliable, invincible and world-wide bulwark) against the Treaty of Versailles and against international imperialism in general." [21]
The Mandate system was a colonialist system for the super exploitations of the colonies.
The Paris conference exposed among other things the hypocrisy of the US President Wilson's who acknowledged in January 1918, that the concept of the right of self-determination applied equally to the non-Western part of humanity. In his 14 points program we find: "A free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the Government whose title is to be determined". [22] Yet in 1919 he supported the mandate colonialist system. [23]
Weitzman declared in 1918 that the aim of the Zionists was to establish only a national home and not a state. He wrote the Foreign Office: "We were prepared to find a certain amount of hostility on the part of the Arabs and Syrians, based largely on misconception of our real aims, and we have always realized that one of our principal duties would be to dispel misconceptions and to endeavor to arrive at an amicable understanding with the non-Jewish elements of the population on the basis of the declared policy of His Majesty's Government." [24]
The Military Governor, Colonel (later Sir) Ronald Storrs, commented: "As for Weizmann and Palestine, I entertain no doubt that he is out for a Jewish Government, if not at the moment then in the near future ..."… "I feel tolerably sure therefore that while Weizmann may say one thing to you, or while you may mean one thing by a national home, he is out for something quite different. He contemplates a Jewish State, a Jewish nation, a subordinate population of Arabs, etc. ruled by Jews; the Jews in possession of the fat of the land, and directing the Administration." [25]
At the end of the Ottoman period Palestinians began their resistance to the Zionist colonization The Historian Rashid Khalidi wrote that the fallahin resistance to land evictions by Ottoman authorities and Zionist militias took the form of both armed and unarmed resistance. [26]
One of the first paramilitary Zionist organizations was the Hashomer ("The Watchman") which was organized in 1909 to defend the first Zionist colonies established by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, against the Arab peasants who were evicted from their villages in order to build the Zionist colonies.
The King-Crane Commission, officially called the 1919 Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates set by Wilson stated: "The Peace Conference should not shut its eyes to the fact that the anti-Zionist feeling in Palestine and Syria is intense and not lightly to be flouted. No British Officer consulted by the Commissioners believed that the Zionist programme could be carried out except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than 50,000 soldiers would be required even to initiate the programme. That of itself is evidence of a strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist programme, on the part of the non-Jewish populations of Palestine and Syria. Decisions, requiring armies to carry out, are sometimes necessary, but they are surely not gratuitously to be taken in the interests of a serious injustice, for the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a "right" to Palestine, based on an occupation of two thousand years ago, can hardly be seriously considered." [27]
In the Peace conference in Paris in 1919 the Zionist delegation demanded: "The Hermon is Palestine's real "Father of Waters," and cannot be severed from it without striking at the very root of its economic life. The Hermon not only need re-afforestation but also other work before it can again adequately serve as the water reservoir of the country. It must, therefore, be wholly under the control of those who will most willingly as well as most adequately restore it to its maximum utility. Some international arrangement must be made whereby the riparian rights of the people dwelling south of the Litani River may be fully protected, properly cared for, these headwaters can be made to serve in the development of the Lebanon as well as of Palestine. The fertile plains east of the Jordan, since the earliest Biblical times, have been linked economically and politically with the land west of the Jordan. The country, which is now very sparsely populated, in Roman times supported a great population. It could now serve admirably for colonization on a large scale. A just regard for the economic needs of Palestine and Arabia demands that free access to the Hedjaz Railway throughout its length be accorded both Governments. An intensive development of the agriculture and other opportunities of Trans-Jordania make it imperative that Palestine shall have access to the Red Sea and an opportunity of developing good harbors on the Gulf of Akaba. Akaba, it will be recalled, was the terminus of an important trade route of Palestine from the days of Solomon onwards. The ports developed in the Gulf of Akaba should be free ports through which the commerce of the Hinterland may pass on the same principle which guides us in suggesting that free access be given to the Hedjaz Railway." [28]
Thus the Zionist demanded part of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Israel as it is known occupied the Hermon (Golan Heights) and tried to occupy south Lebanon in the first Lebanon war in 1982.
The Zionist propaganda portrait Crane and King as Anti-Semites: "The well-known anti-Zionist predilections of Crane colored the testimony and made its credibility somewhat doubtful. Any question of his objectivity in Palestine was settled by his admiration for Hitler's Germany -- Crane called the Third Reich "the real political bulwark of Christian culture" -- and his approval of Stalin's anti-Jewish purges in Soviet Russia. His biographer described his later life as dominated by:... a most pronounced prejudice...his unbridled dislike of Jews." Crane "tried...to persuade ...President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to shun the counsels of Felix Frankfurter and to avoid appointing other Jews to government posts." Crane "envisioned a world-wide attempt on the part of the Jews to stamp out all religious life and felt that only a coalition of Muslims and Roman Catholics would be strong enough to defeat such designs. In 1933 Crane actually proposed to Haj Amin Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, that the Mufti open talks with the Vatican to plan an anti-Jewish campaign." [29]
A search about King and Crane reviles: "King was one of the best known educators of his time and served as the director of religious work for the YMCA in France. Mr. Crane was selected as part of a special diplomatic mission to Russia and was U.S. Ambassador to China from 1920-1921. In 1919, after World War I and the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, President Woodrow Wilson appointed King and Crane to head the Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey… Prior to their journey, King and Crane had been lobbied by pro-Zionist groups and were, by their own admission, "pre-disposed in its favor." However, during conferences with local Jewish representatives, it became apparent that their goal was the "practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine by various forms of purchase." [30]
Due to political pressures the report was published only in 1922 after the US Senate and House had passed a joint resolution in favor of establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Henry King Churchill died in 1934 and there are no indications whatsoever that he harbored Anti-Semitic sentiments. By many accounts Crane was an anti-Semite. However the fact that he supported Hitler does not prove that in 1919 he was a pro- Nazi. His position reflected the wishes of the majority of the population that was an Arab. Furthermore, it is true that the Zionists from the very beginning of their colonization of Palestine wanted to establish a Jewish state in Palestine with a Jewish majority and for this they had to expel the native Palestinians from what they considered their own promised land. So the commission conclusion was right regardless of the shady character of Crane.
The Mandate for Palestine was assigned to Great Britain by the Allies at the San Remo Conference (1920) and endorsed by the League of Nations (1922).
The 1929 Clashes
In August 1929 a very serious clash between Muslims and Jews took place in Jerusalem over the Western Wall.
According to the Zionists propaganda the clashes between the Muslims and the Jews were reflection of Anti-Semitic propaganda initiated by the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin. For example: "Appointed Mufti of Jerusalem by the British in 1921, Haj Amin al-Husseini was the most prominent Arab figure in Palestine during the Mandatory period. Al-Husseini was born in Jerusalem in 1893, and went on to serve in the Ottoman Army during World War I. Anti-British and anti-Jewish, the mufti was the key nationalist figure among Muslims in Palestine. Fearful that increased Jewish immigration to Palestine would damage Arab standing in the area; the mufti engineered the bloody riots against Jewish settlement in 1929 and 1936." [31]
Once again this is a Zionist propaganda and not the truth. Haj Amin al-Husseini was not Anti British, he was nominated by the British with the recommendations of the Zionists because they trusted him to serve the British. He did not engineer the events of 1929 as can be learned from the British inquiry commissions. In more than one way the actions of the Zionists led to the clashes.
While the Muslim attacks on religious non-Zionist Jews had a reactionary element, the Zionists actions led the Muslims to believe for good reasons that the Zionists wanted to appropriate the Western Wall for themselves, even though it is a holy place for the Muslims and not only for the Jews. The history after 1967 has proven that the Muslims were right.
"The British established an investigation commission known as the Shaw report. The commission's report was issued in March 1930 and led to the Hope Simpson Enquiry in May 1930. It concluded that the cause of the rioting was based in Arab fears of continual Jewish immigration and land purchases, particularly resonating from a growing Arab landless class. The 1929 Commission addressed two aspects of the disturbances, the immediate nature of the riots and the causes behind them. It criticized the immigration and land-purchase policies that, it said, gave Jews unfair advantages. The commission also recommended that the British take greater care in protecting the Arabs' rights and It found that the purchase of lands by Jewish constituted a danger to the Arabs' national survival, since highly productive land was being bought, suggesting that 'immigrants would not be content to occupy undeveloped areas', with the consequence that 'the economic pressure upon the Arab population was likely to increase. The conclusions of the Commission, especially regarding the clashes were that the outbreak in Jerusalem on 23 August was from the beginning an attack by Arabs on Jews without an earlier murders by Jews of Arabs. The outbreak was not premeditated. A general massacre of the Jewish community at Hebron was narrowly averted. In a few instances, Jews attacked Arabs and destroyed Arab property. These attacks, though inexcusable, were in most cases in retaliation for wrongs already committed by Arabs in the neighborhoods in which the Jewish attacks occurred. The Mufti was influenced by the twofold desire to confront the Jews and to mobilize Moslem opinion on the issue of the Wailing Wall. He had no intention of utilizing this religious campaign as the means of inciting to disorder. The Mufti, like many others who directly or indirectly played upon public feeling in Palestine, must accept a share in the responsibility for the disturbances. In the matter of innovations of practice of the Jews at the Wailing Wall little blame can be attached to the Mufti in which some Jewish religious authorities also would not have to share. There is no evidence that the Mufti issued any requests to Moslems in Palestine to come up to Jerusalem on 23 August and no connection has been established between the Mufti and the work of those who either are known or are thought to have engaged in agitation or incitement. After the disturbances had broken out, the Mufti co-operated with the Government in their efforts both to restore peace and to prevent the extension of disorder.
However, the claims and demands which from the Zionist side have been advanced to the future of Jewish immigration into Palestine have been such as to arouse among the Arabs the apprehensions that they will in time be deprived of their livelihood and pass under the political domination of the Jews. There is incontestable evidence that in the matter of immigration there has been a serious departure by the Jewish authorities from the doctrine accepted by the Zionist Organization in 1922 that immigration should be regulated by the economic capacity of Palestine to absorb new arrivals. Between 1921 and 1929 there were large sales of land in consequence of which numbers of Arabs were evicted without the provision of other land for their occupation.
The immediate causes of the outbreak were: The long series of incidents connected with the Wailing Wall. These must be regarded as a whole, but the incident among them which contributed most to the outbreak was the Jewish demonstration at the Wailing Wall on 15 August 1929. The Commission recommended that the Government reconsider its policies as to Jewish immigration and land sales to Jews.
The report of Hope Simpson Royal Commission in 1930 stated that the main victims of the rioting were Orthodox Jews, however the Orthodox community took a decision to boycott the Commission Immigration policy should be clearly defined, and its administration reviewed "with the object of preventing a repetition of the excessive immigration of 1925 and 1926" The "tendency towards the eviction of peasant cultivators from the land should be checked." The long-running dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem escalated into violence. The riots took the form, in the most part, of attacks by Arabs on Jews accompanied by destruction of Jewish property. 133 Jews were killed by Arabs and 339 others were injured, while 110 Arabs were killed and 232 were injured, The Western Wall is one of the holiest of Jewish sites, sacred because it is a remnant of the ancient wall that once enclosed the Jewish Second Temple. The Jews, through the practice of centuries, had established a right of access to the Wailing Wall for the purposes of their devotions. As part of the Temple Mount the Western Wall was under the control of the Muslim religious trust, the Waqf. Muslims consider the wall to be part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, and according to Islamic tradition the place where Muhammad tied his horse, Buraq, before his night journey to heaven. There had been a few serious incidents resulting from these differences. As a result of an incident, which occurred in September 1925, a ruling was made which forbade the Jews to bring seats and benches to the Wall even though these were intended for worshippers who were aged and infirm. The Muslims linked any adaptations to the site with "the Zionist project" and feared that they would be the first step in turning the site into a synagogue and taking it over. Several months earlier Zionist leader Menachem Ussishkin gave a speech demanding "a Jewish state without compromises and without concessions, from Dan to Be'er Sheva, from the great sea to the desert, including Transjordan." He concluded, "Let us swear that the Jewish people will not rest and will not remain silent until its national home is built on our Mt Moriah", a reference to the Temple Mount. In September 1928, Jews praying at the Wall on Yom Kippur placed chairs and a partition, consisting of a few wooden frames covered with cloth which separated the men and women. Jerusalem's British commissioner Edward Keith-Roach, while visiting the Muslim religious court overlooking the prayer area, pointed out the screen, mentioning that he had never seen it at the wall before. This precipitated emotional protests and demands from the assembled sheiks that it be removed. Unless it was taken down, they said, they would not be responsible for what happened. The screen was described as violating the Ottoman status quo that forbade Jews from making any "construction" at the Western Wall area and played into Muslim fears of Zionist expropriation of the site, though such screens had been put up from time to time. Keith-Roach told the beadle that the screen had to be removed because of the Arabs' demands. The beadle requested that the screen remained standing until the end of the prayer service, to which Keith-Roach agreed. When the Jewish beadle failed to remove the screen as agreed, ten armed men were sent in, urged on by Arab residents who were shouting, "Death to the Jewish dogs!" and "Strike, strike". A violent clash with worshipers took place, and it was destroyed .Zionist literature published throughout the world used the imagery of a domed structure on the Temple Mount to symbolize their national aspirations. Zionists had appropriated an Islamic minaret from the Ottoman period on the old city wall as a symbol for their propaganda. A Zionist flag was depicted atop of a building very reminiscent of the Dome of the Rock in one publication, which was later picked up and redistributed by Arab propagandists. Haj Amin al Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem distributed leaflets to Arabs in Palestine and throughout the Arab world which claimed that the Jews were planning to take over the al-Aqsa Mosque. The leaflet stated that the Government was "responsible for any consequences of any measures which the Moslems may adopt for the purpose of defending the holy Burak themselves in the event of the failure of the Government...to prevent any such intrusion on the part of the Jews." A memorandum issued by the Moslem Supreme Council stated, "Having realized by bitter experience the unlimited greedy aspirations of the Jews in this respect, Moslems believe that the Jews' aim is to take possession of the Mosque of Al-Aqsa gradually on the pretense that it is the Temple", and it advised the Jews "to stop this hostile propaganda which will naturally engender a parallel action in the whole Moslem world, the responsibility for which will rest with the Jews". Zionists began making demands for control over the wall; some went as far as to call openly for the rebuilding of the Temple, increasing Muslim fears over Zionist intentions. Ben-Gurion said the wall should be "redeemed", predicting it could be achieved in as little as "another half a year". During the spring of 1929 the Revisionist newspaper, Doar HaYom ran a long campaign claiming Jewish rights over the wall and its pavement. On 14 August the Haganah and Brit Trumpeldor held a meeting in Tel Aviv attended by 6,000 people objecting to 1928 Commission's conclusion that the Wall was Muslim property. March to the Western Wall and counter demonstrations On Thursday, 15 August 1929, during the Jewish fast of Tisha B'Av, several hundred members of Joseph Klaussner's Committee for the Western Wall, among them members of Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism movement Beitar youth organization, under the leadership of Jeremiah Halpern, marched to the Western Wall shouting "the Wall is ours". At the Wall they raised the Jewish national flag and sang Hatikvah, the Jewish anthem. Rumours spread that the youths had attacked local residents and had cursed the name of the Prophet Muhammad. On Friday, 16 August, after an inflammatory sermon, a demonstration organized by the Supreme Muslim Council marched to the Wall. The Acting High Commissioner summoned Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini and informed him that he had never heard of such a demonstration being held at the Wailing Wall, and that it would be a terrible shock to the Jews who regarded the Wall as a place of special sanctity to them. At the Wall, the crowd burnt prayer books, liturgical fixtures and notes of supplication left in the wall's cracks, and the beadle was injured. The rioting spread to the Jewish commercial area of town. Inflammatory articles calculated to incite disorder appeared in the Arab media and one flyer, signed by "the Committee of the Holy Warriors in Palestine" stated that the Jews had violated the honor of Islam, and declared: "Hearts are in tumult because of these barbaric deeds, and the people began to break out in shouts of 'war, Jihad ... rebellion.' ... O Arab nation, the eyes of your brothers in Palestine are upon you ... and they awaken your religious feelings and national zealotry to rise up against the enemy who violated the honor of Islam and raped the women and murdered widows and babies. On the same afternoon, the Jewish newspaper Doar HaYom published an inflammatory leaflet describing the Muslim march, based partially on statements by Wolfgang von Weisl, which "in material particulars was incorrect." [32]
The Muslims were right to suspect the intention of the Zionists. Israel controls the Al Aqsa and allows supporters of the insane idea of a third temple to enter the courtyard of the Mosque and pray there in spite of the objection of the guardians of the Mosques. In 2013 the Israeli Parliament debated a draft Israeli law granting Jews the right to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque esplanade - one of the three most holy sites in Islam. Last year the Israeli Magistrate Court in Jerusalem ruled that Jewish settlers can perform prayers at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque, On June 9 2016 the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, David Lau, said he would like to see the Jewish temple rebuilt on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. [33]
According to the Zionist Christian Magazine: "The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement are preparing for the construction of the Jewish Third Temple on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The stones are being cut according to the description of the Millennial Temple in Ezekiel and artisans also are making the holy objects for placement within the inner areas as proscribed for the operation of daily worship. The Movement sent a letter to the Pope asking him "to return the Holy Temple Menorah, the vessels, and the treasures to Israel without delay." According to the prophecies of the end times, the Jewish Temple must be rebuilt before the Lord returns. Major events in the final years will revolve around this Temple and Jesus will come back to live within it during the 1,000 year Kingdom Age. Everything is coming together for the Temple's construction; therefore the time of the end must be drawing near". [34]
Don Koeing, a temporary Christian Zionist, wrote:
"The survival of the Jews as a race is remarkable. Many times in history the Jews have been slaughtered with the last major slaughter being the holocaust in Germany when one third of the world's Jews were murdered. In spite of this the Jews survive as a race and religion and many are now back in their land just as was foretold by their prophets.
There will be a final attempt to exterminate the Jews by satanic forces. At that time scripture indicates that two thirds of all the Jews in the land will be killed and one third will be refined through the fire. Satan understands that the promised Messiah is Jewish and by exterminating the Jews he knows the promised Jewish Kingdom on earth can never take place.
It is my theory that Satan wishes for all Jews to return to the land of Israel so that he can finally destroy all of them there in one place. This is why the world United Nations under the authority of Satan allowed the creation of Israel in the first place. However, God has allowed the return of the Jews to His land for other reasons. He will judge the nations there by how they treat the Jews dwelling in His land and then God will restore the kingdom to Israel with Jesus on the throne of David." [35]
According to the Israeli Arutz 7 from 2015 "The Temple Institute has released a modern three-dimensional architectural rendition of the future Third Holy Temple, utilizing the latest building material and techniques." [36]
In the last years the right wingers who want to build a synagogue in al Aqsa have come with the following argument: "Early Islamic sources state that the "al Aqsa Mosque" (literal meaning: 'the farther mosque'), mentioned only once in the Koran, was one of two mosques located near Ji'irrana, a village located between Mecca and Taaf in the Arabian Peninsula (now Saudi Arabia.) One of the mosques was called "al-Masjid al-Adna," meaning the "closer mosque" and the other "al-Masjid al-Aqsa", the "farther mosque." When the Koran refers to the al Aqsa mosque while telling the myth of the Prophet Muhammad's night time journey from the "holy mosque" of Mecca to al Aqsa, that is, the "farther mosque," it is referring to the mosque in Ji'irrana." [37]
"In 682 C.E., fifty years after Mohammed's death, Abd allah Ibn al-Zubayr, the tough man of Mecca, rebelled against the Umayyads who ruled Damascus and would not allow them to fulfill the Haj in Mecca. Since the Haj pilgrimage is one of the five basic Islamic commandments, they were forced to choose Jerusalem as their alternative for a pilgrimage site. In order to justify choosing Jerusalem, the Umayyads rewrote the story told in the Koran, moving the al Aqsa mosque to Jerusalem, and adding, for good measure, the myth of the night time journey of Mohammed to al Aqsa. This is the reason the Sunnis now consider Jerusalem their third holiest city." [38]
Clearly the arrival of Zionists to Palestine, under the protection of the British, the evictions of the Arab peasants and Zionist nationalist propaganda that did not hide the Zionist intentions to appropriate the country led to the Palestinian resistance which was at the same time in a process of forming a nation. The purchases of land by Jews for Zionist settlement which displaced tens of thousands of Palestinian peasants from their homes led to armed struggle. It was Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam, a Syrian who resided in Haifa since 1922, who called for an armed revolt against the British and the Zionists. In 1935 the British killed Al-Qassam. His resistance inspired many Palestinians. By 1936, an Arab rebellion erupted against British imperialism and Zionist settler-colonialism. The best account of the rebellion can be found in Ghassan Kanafani "The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine" who wrote: "Between 1936 and 1939, the Palestinian revolutionary movement suffered a severe setback at the hands of three separate enemies that were to constitute together the principal threat to the nationalist movement in Palestine in all subsequent stages of its struggle: the local reactionary leadership; the regimes in the Arab states surrounding Palestine; and the imperialist-Zionist enemy."
The reactionary local leadership was led by Haj Amin al Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who represented the landlord aristocracy. They were afraid that they will lose the control over the revolutionary movement of workers and peasants. Haj Amin al Husseini was nominated by the Zionist British High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, with the advised of the Zionist leadership who were sure that he will serve the British, and thus the Zionists. Until 1936 the Mufti served two masters in this order: his British employers, and his class. However, when the Arab revolt began in 1936, activists called on him to lead them against Zionism and British rule. As soon as he agreed to lead the revolt, as president of the Arab Higher Committee, he put himself on a collision course with the British government. He had to escape. He escaped to Iraq and participated in the Anti-British revolt in 1941 led by Rashid Ali who had a pro-German orientation. His government was defeated in May 1941 the British and when it was crashed he escaped to Berlin. During the rule of Rashid Ali a massacre of Jews known as the Farhud took place with over 180 lives were lost, but at the same time many Muslims saved Jews.
In Berlin he helped the Nazi regime. The Nazis promised to help the Arab countries liberate themselves from British rule, for which the Mufti helped with anti-British and anti-Jewish propaganda and recruited Muslim volunteers for the war effort.
The Zionists love to use his relations with the Nazi regime for their Anti-Palestinian propaganda while hiding their supporting role for the Third Reich. One example of the Zionist lies about the Mufti is the statement of Benjamin Netanyahu that Hitler did not intend to kill the Jews until the Mufti changed his mind. [39] A relative honest biography of the Mufti can be found in Elpeleg, Z. (Zvi), The grand mufti: Haj Amin al-Hussaini, founder of the Palestinian national movement. [40]
The Arabs Kings, servants of British imperialism, did everything they could to end the uprising for fear of similar uprisings in the Arab countries.
By 1939, the British with the support of the Zionists terrorism had smashed the rebellion. The British shipped over 20,000 troops to Palestine while the Zionists had some 15,000 Jews that helped the British. An estimated 5,000 Arabs were killed in the revolt, 15000 got wounded and another 5600 were imprisoned. [41]
Were the Zionists a national liberation movement and in a different earlier period , they would had joined the Palestinians uprising, as happened for example in Latin America, when the local Spaniard joined the creoles against Spain, but being settler colonialists in the epoch of decay of capitalism they joined the British repression of the Palestinian national liberation struggle.
"In response to the rebellion the British issued a white paper. The white paper of the British government from 1939 was a government policy document, prepared by Secretary of State for the Colonies Malcolm MacDonald and published on 21 May 1939. Following the conclusions of the Peel and Woodhead Commissions and discussions at the St. James Conference, as well as the ongoing Arab Revolt, the paper rejected the idea of partition and suggested the establishment within 10 years of an independent state in Palestine, with Arabs and Jews sharing the government. It also concluded that Jewish immigration to Palestine should be limited by both the country's economic capacity and the political consequences, bringing the Jewish population to around one-third of the total in five years, after which further immigration would require Arab consent. It further called for restrictions on the purchase of land by Jews that were indeed enacted in 1940." [42] In other words it clearly opposed a Zionist state even in part of Palestine. Since the Arabs were the majority this paper called for one state with a Jewish minority. By 1939 the Balfour declaration had no legal value at all. This white paper annulled the Balfour Declaration.
The Zionists, that during the Arab rebellion of 1936-9 against the imperialist rule of Britain joined the British repression of the Arab national liberation, began in 1945 a political and a military campaign to prevent the independence of Palestine and the rule of the majority trying to force the British to allow many more Zionist immigrants.
"The Jewish underground groups launched their insurgency against the British on 31 October 1945 with a series of coordinated attacks against the railways, oil refineries, and police boats. The anti-British insurgency continued for nearly two years, in two phases. The first, often referred to as the "United Resistance" phase, lasted from October 1945 to August 1946. During this period, the three groups attempted to coordinate their actions against the British, but political and strategic disagreements precluded a wholly united front. The Haganah used violence as a pressure tactic to persuade the British to change their policy on Jewish immigration into Palestine. So, it limited its attacks mostly to targets related to anti-immigration efforts, such as coastal radar stations and police boats. But it also sabotaged the railway as a way of imposing economic pressure on the British. The Irgun and Stern groups, did not believe that the British would give Palestine to the Jews and thus were determined to force them out." [43]
These military actions did not turn the Zionists all of a sudden into an anti-imperialist movement as the aim was not to liberate Palestine from the imperialists but to force the British imperialist to give the Zionist minority the control of Palestine and to drive out the native Arab population.
In July 1946, the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the location of the British military and civil administration, killing some 91 people, including Britons, Arabs and Jews. Thus long before the Palestinians used the method of terror it was used by the Zionists.
[1] Hyamson, Albert, "British Projects for the Restoration of Jews to Palestine", American Jewish Historical Society, Publications 26, 1918
[2] Jerry Klinger: Rev. William Hechler & Theodor Herzl. A Zionist debt fulfilled, The Jewish Magazine, April 2011, http://www.jewishmag.co.il/153mag/theodor_herzl_hechler/theodor_herzl_hechler.htm
[3] Joseph M. Hochstein and Ami Isseroff: Zionism and Israel – Biographies, Orde Charles Wingate: "Hayedid"
[4] David Krusch: Christian Zionism, Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/christian-zionism
[5] Middle East Web: Napoleon Bonaparte's Letter to the Jews, April 20, 1799, http://www.mideastweb.org/napoleon1799.htm
[6] Leon Rosselsson: Theodor Herzl - Visionary Or Antisemite? Jan 23 2019 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jtlGsNFfTS0J:https://medium.com/%40rosselson/theodor-herzl-visionary-or-antisemite-97bfbe92980+&cd=1&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-d
[7] The Armenian genocide, http://endgenocide.org/learn/past-genocides/the-armenian-genocide/
[8] Rafi Mann: Herzl's Public Diplomacy and "the Armenian Question", Kesher, 40 (2010), pp. 11-20
[9] Zionism and anti-Semitism: Joseph Massad on the sordid historical alliance (E9), 17 November 2017, https://moderaterebels.com/episode-9-show-notes-zionism-anti-semitism-joseph-massad/
[10] Richard Silverstein: Adolf Eichmann: "If I Were a Jew, I'd Be a Fanatical Zionist", Tikun Olam, May 27, 2016 https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/05/27/adolf-eichmann-if-i-were-a-jew-id-be-a-fanatical-zionist/
[11] Benny Morris: Righteous Victims, p. 162
[12] Herzl: An excerpt from "The Jewish State" https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-zionist-vision/
[13] Leon Trotsky: On the Jewish Problem, https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/jewish.htm
[14] British Lies To The Arabs In World War I, http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports/Imperialism/britainlies.html
[15] https://mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/the%20balfour%20declaration.aspx
[16] John Cornelius: The Hidden History of the Balfour Declaration, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2005, p.6
[17] James Edward Renton: The historiography of the Balfour declaration: Toward a multi‐causal framework, Journal of Israeli History, 19 (2), 1998, p. 111
[18] The world Zionist organization http://www.wzo.org.il/index.php?dir=site&page=articles&op=item&cs=3326&category=3040
[19] Vital Statistics: Total Casualties, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/total-casualties-arab-israeli-conflict
[20] British Government, British Public Record Office, Cabinet No. 24/24 (August 1917).
[21] V.I.Lenin: Left-Wing" Communism: an Infantile Disorder, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/
[22] Interpretation of President Wilson's Fourteen Points by Colonel House, https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/doc31.htm
[23] Pitman B. Potter: Origin Of The System Of Mandates Under The League Of Nations, The American Political Science Review November 1922
[24] British Foreign Office No. 371/3398 (1918)
[25] British Foreign Office No. 800/215 (1919)
[26] Rashid Khalidi: Palestinian Identity: The Construction, of Modern National Consciousness, Columbia University Press, 1997; chapter 5
[27] United States Government, op. cit., vol. XII, pp. 780-781. 51/ Ibid., vol. XII, pp. 793
[28] Jewish Virtual Library: State Israel: Zionist Organization Statement on Palestine at the Paris Peace Conference (February 3, 1919), https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/zionist-organization-statement-on-palestine-at-the-paris-peace-conference
[29] Palestine Facts: King Crane Commission of 1919, http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_ww1_king_crane_1919/
[30] Tammy Obeidallah: Untold Story of The King-Crane Commission, 2009, http://www.palestinechronicle.com/untold-story-of-the-king-crane-commission
[31] The Jewish Virtual Library: Haj Amin al-Husseini, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/haj-amin-al-husseini
[32] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots
[33] Sue Surkes: Israel chief rabbi urges rebuilding Jerusalem temple, 9 June 2016, The Times of Israel https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-chief-rabbi-urges-rebuilding-jerusalem-temple/
[34] Israel Preparing to Build Third Temple, End Time Truth, https://endtimestruth.com/israel-preparing-to-build-third-temple/
[35] Don Koenig: Israel the third temple and the coming Jewish holocaust, https://www.thepropheticyears.com/reasons/Jews.htm
[36] Arutz Sheva Staff: Watch: Plans for Third Temple Have Begun, 26/07/2015, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/198621
[37] Where is the Al Aqsa of the Koran and Where is it Not? https://onej.org/where-is-the-al-aqsa-of-the-koran-and-where-is-it-not/
[38] https://www.israelandstuff.com/another-lie-exposed-the-real-al-aqsa-mosque-is-not-on-the-temple-mount-in-jerusalem
[39] Netanyahu: Hitler Didn't Want to Exterminate the Jews, Haaretz, Oct 21, 2015
[40] Elpeleg, Z. (Zvi), The grand mufti: Haj Amin al-Hussaini, founder of the Palestinian national movement, London, England; Portland, Or.: Frank Cass, 1992
[41] Palestine facts: Palestine Arab Revolt 1936-39, http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_riots_1936-39/
[42] British White Paper of 1939 on Palestine (MacDonald White Paper), https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/955
[43] David A. Jewish: Terrorism and the Modern Middle East, Journal of Conflict Studies 2017 https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/jcs/article/view/10538/11136


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Critics and Criticisms Podcast Index
» Against Charles Weisman
Addressing Charles Weisman's What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 3
ChrSat20200229Weisman03.mp3 — Downloaded 2013 times
Once again, there were many extemporaneous remarks and explanations in this presentation. The prepared notes are found below.
This will be part 3 of our discussion addressing aspects of the book: What About the Seedline Doctrine? A Biblical Examination and Explanation of the Cain-Satanic Seedline Doctrine by Charles A. Weisman. We are still in chapter 2 of the book, which is titled "The Basis of the Satanic Seedline Doctrine". Once again, we still haven't located a copy of the book which contains the first chapter, but if we ever do, we might have to backtrack a bit to address that also. A friend wrote me this week and I think he may have a copy. Now, as I have said several times already, continuing to examine Weisman's arguments and methods of analysis, I am certain we shall also continue to find that he failed to answer the question which he himself had posed in the title of his book.
Before we get back to where we left off in Weisman's book, I would like to discuss this hare-brained idea that our interpretation of Genesis chapter 3 had originated in the Talmud. Perhaps this argument belongs at the end of our address of Weisman's book, since he has chapters there which present it, but it is brought to the forefront by his supporters, so we shall address it in part now. Concerning our interpretation, I don't really like to call it "Two-Seedline" but we are sort of stuck with the label because it has long been popular. The label is too narrow, and the real struggle is between two trees, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life.
The Talmud did not exist in the first century. However the basis for it seems to have developed from what was called the "traditions of the elders". There was a so-called "oral law" of the Jews, which Christ had condemned and which Moses also condemns, which was eventually written down and compiled into what had evolved and is now known as the Talmud. That does not, however, mean that the entire Talmud had already existed in unified oral traditions. The assorted characters to whom are attributed many of the non-Biblical writings in the Talmud did not live for at least two to six centuries after Christ, and some even beyond that.
So the Talmud contains the so-called "Oral Law", the Mishnah and the Midrash which are exegetical commentaries and rabbinical disputations of the law, and the Gemara, which is a further rabbinical commentary on the Mishnah, and these also contain elaborations and expansions on Scripture which are apocryphal, or even pseudepigraphal, highly interpretative, and often perverse in nature. But all of these things were developed and put into writing long after the time of Christ. And that does not mean that the Jews did not have elements of truth mixed in with all of their lies and contentions. The Jerusalem Talmud did not exist until the late 3rd or 4th centuries. It was eventually marginalized by the more popular Babylonian Talmud, which did not exist until the 6th century and which continued to be edited even later than that.
But the Christian works such as the 4th book of Maccabees and the Protevangelion of James, and all of the other citations we use which describe the sexual seduction of Eve and the other sins of the fallen angels, such as the fragments of Enoch from the Dead Sea Scrolls, are far older than the earliest volumes of the Talmud. Even the Aramaic Targums, while they are far from ideal interpretations of Scripture, may have been preserved in the Talmud but they are not necessarily Talmudic in origin. So Charles Weisman used the claim that "two-seedline" has its origins in the Talmud as a slander, as a defamatory ad hominem argument which is certainly not true.
The Wisdom of Solomon, fragments of which were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, is a book far older than the rabbinical writings in the Talmud. The work states at the end of its second chapter that "Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world…" So that is how Solomon had interpreted Genesis chapter 3, that Eve had envied the devil. For that reason, as we find in Genesis, when Yahweh God corrected her He told her "and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
We have already cited the Protevangelium of James and 4 Maccabees in this same regard. The first work I do not accept as authentic Scripture, however it does give further insight into the fact that early Christians interpreted Genesis chapter 3 in the same manner which we do. Likewise, 4 Maccabees, which is a pious Christian work although it should not be deemed as canonical Scripture, also interpreted Genesis chapter 3 in the same manner in which we interpret the account. The Aramaic Targums also sought to amend Genesis 4:1, asserting that a fallen angel was the biological father of Cain. We can demonstrate that Genesis 4:1 had indeed been corrupted at an early time, for which even the earliest translators found the verse very difficult to translate. I would turn to the Hexapla of Origen, a work of the 3rd century, to help make that demonstration. Hopefully we shall discuss that passage at length later in these presentations, as Weisman holds it up as proof refuting our position.
So early Christians and pious writers from before the time of Christ had understood that Genesis chapter 3 was an account of Eve's sexual seduction, and the subsequent sexual transgression which Adam and Eve had committed, and so did early Jews, who later referred to it in their Talmud. Just because something appears in the Talmud does not mean that it may not be true, even if the version of the account as the Talmud presents it may be twisted. The Jews understood that Genesis chapter 3 was an allegory describing a sexual act, they understood the Hebrew idioms, and early Christians as well as the author of the Wisdom of Solomon also believed that it was a sexual allegory. What we call "two-seedline" cannot be condemned on the basis that it is mentioned in the Talmud. Making the claim that "two-seedline" came from the Talmud is essentially no different than reading the Talmudic passages that refer to Christ and then claiming that Christianity came from the Talmud. The Torah itself is also found in the Talmud, so was that devised by wicked Jews?
In our last presentation addressing Weisman, we demonstrated his deceptive dishonesty in interpreting the statements of Paul of Tarsus concerning Eve, which are found in his epistles to the Corinthians and to Timothy. Weisman actually claimed an ability to read Paul's mind while ignoring half of what Paul had said, which is the half which proves Weisman wrong about what he claimed Paul was thinking. Doing that, we also mocked him for his assertions denying the allegorical use of the word eat in reference to sex, which is easily refuted in the Proverbs. Weisman asserted that Eve committed some sort of thought crime, an idea which we also ridiculed since Eve was punished, and nowhere in the Law are mere thoughts punished. Since both Adam and Eve were punished, as we explained at length from the words of the apostles, then there had to be both a law and an act of transgression of that law.
After that, we further mocked Weisman for not properly distinguishing between trees planted into the ground, which were literal fruit trees, and the two trees which were "in the midst of the garden" which were actually allegories for people. But where Charles Weisman is deceptive beyond belief is in his claim that the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" is the law, which we have also already discredited. If that tree were the law, there is no doubt that Yahweh would have wanted Adam and Eve to cling to it, to eat from it, which is a sentiment found throughout the entire Scripture. Rather, when they transgressed, they were not told to keep the law to be saved. They were not told to grasp the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to be saved. Instead, they were told that they must reach out and grasp the Tree of Life in order to be saved.
As Paul of Tarsus explained, the Law was not given until Sinai. Adam and Eve were only given one law, which was not to touch of the tree. That was the only law given to them or to their descendants for many generations. Since there had to be a law for them to have been justly punished, as the apostles themselves explained, then it is the transgression of that particular law for which they were punished, and for which their descendants were punished as it is described in Genesis chapter 6. If the tree were the law, then Yahweh God is found to be contradicting Himself, giving them a law which commands them to stay away from the law! Weisman deserves ridicule for that because by his ridiculous assertion he is actually mocking God. Instead, it is Charles Weisman who should be mocked.
We had left off with Charles Weisman and his claim that Eve's seed is "anyone who came from Eve's womb", and we disproved the assertion because children of mixed race clearly do not have seed which is identical to their mother, so the child would not be of the same seed. The same is true of any hybrid, either of plants or of animals. Therefore it is not true that a woman's seed is anyone who comes from her womb.
The New Testament recognizes the origins of sin where the apostle John had written in chapter 3 of his first epistle that "9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." The children of God will ultimately be blameless from sin, because sin was introduced into the world "for envy of the devil", as the Wisdom of Solomon had attested. But for Cain, "sin lieth at the door" because he was born in sin. For that reason he could not do good.
Finally, we examined Weisman's claim that Eve's seed could not have been a collective seed, as no people or nation was named after her. But we have shown that Sarah and Rebekah had also been given promises concerning their collective seed, which Paul had even mentioned in his epistle to the Romans. With that we illustrated the fact that even though the seed is named after the line of the father, the nature and identity of the mother still matters, and Weisman's argument is once again exposed as being dishonest and deceptive.
Now we shall continue from that point in Weisman's book, which brings us to page 11. Here Weisman takes another dishonest turn where he tries to explain that by "seed of the woman" only Christ Himself is meant. So he says:
"What then does all of this mean? There really is no obscurity associated with Genesis 3:15. This verse has for centuries been understood as being a prophecy of Christ and His salvation of Adamic man. Prof. Davidson states the following about Genesis 3:15.
"Note the transition from the serpent's 'seed' to the serpent himself, and also the fact that the 'seed' of the woman is in the singular. Only in Christ, 'the seed of the woman,' could this victory be accomplished, and from this it was to become true for mankind in Him (Rom. xvi. 20; 1 Cor. 4 xv. 57).
Then Weisman responds to this citation and says:
"Genesis 3:15 refers specifically to Jesus Christ, as He was the only one who was born of the seed of a woman (Gal. 4:4), and not of a man. The verse could refer to the Adamic race' or seedline only in an indirect or vicarious sense, as they were to prevail over the serpent through Christ."
Not all of Weisman's response is wrong, since we certainly agree that the race can only succeed through Christ, but that does not mean that Christ alone is the "seed of the woman". Paul of Tarsus in his epistle to the Romans cited Genesis 21:12 and wrote "In Isaac shall thy seed be called." Then he attested that "the children of the promise are counted for the seed." So Christ is not the seed, the collective children of Israel are the seed, and Christ is the firstborn among many brethren, as Paul also attested in that epistle.
But I must ask, that if Christ is not of the "seed of a man" because He was born of a woman, then how is He is the "seed of David"? Was David not a man? The same Paul who wrote Galatians 4:4 also wrote Romans 1:3 and 2 Timothy 2:8 which describe Christ as being of the seed of David, and so did the apostle John in chapter 7 of his gospel. Therefore Paul's profession in Galatians 4:4 does not establish that Weisman's assertion concerning Genesis 3:15 is true. Christ was born of a woman, but he was also of the seed of a man, King David who was but one of His male ancestors. We will get back to this subject, but first we will discuss a few other things.
As a digression, making this argument, Weisman is absolutely dishonest where he says, speaking of Genesis 3:15, that "In regard to the woman's seed, scripture does not say they, but 'it' (or more correctly 'he') shall bruise the head of the serpent. The 'he' (or 'it') and the corresponding 'his' are singular." If Weisman really ever studied any of the Hebrew of the Bible, he would have known that he was making a lie here. But perhaps he did know it.
Where the Hebrew language employs a word as a collective noun, it always uses singular nouns and pronouns. For example, in Genesis chapter 22 we read "17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed [singular] as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed [singular] shall possess the gate of his [singular] enemies…" But sometimes this creates a conflict in English, so a singular Hebrew pronoun is translated into an English plural. For example, in Genesis 24:60 where it says "and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them", the word for seed is singular, and the word translated as them is actually also singular. For another example, where it says in Genesis 28:14 that "thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad", the word for seed is singular, and the verb which is rendered as "thou shalt spread abroad", which refers to the seed, is a singular verb. But the verb is a second person singular, which refers to Jacob as being representative of his descendants. This also exposes another flaw in Weisman's argument. In that same place, Weisman had also said of Genesis 3:15 that "The reference is to the serpent himself, which is singular, and thus not its seedline." But if Yahweh can say "thou" to Jacob when he is clearly speaking in relation to Jacob's descendants, then the same interpretation of the language in Genesis 3:15 is also valid, that Yahweh addressed the serpent in relation to the serpent's descendants. This sort of language appears throughout the Scripture, notably in the blessings which Jacob gave to his sons in Genesis chapters 48 and 49.
So there is another aspect to how Charles Weisman had lied about the manner in which the Hebrew was actually used. A singular collective noun, even though it is collective, was used with singular pronouns, even though the meaning refers to many individuals within the singular collective unit. Where God said to Abraham in Genesis chapter 26 "I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven", the word for seed is singular, but the word for stars is plural. Where Yahweh spoke of Israel collectively in Isaiah 43:5 and said "I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west", all of the Hebrew nouns and pronouns are singular. There are so many examples of this in Scripture that Weisman could not have possibly been ignorant of them, and therefore he must have consciously lied. Again and again, he resorts to sophistry. If Weisman really knew that two-seedline is not true, why did he have to manufacture so many lies in order to dispute it?
From this point Weisman begins to cite many Judaized commentaries in a prolonged attempt to prove that Christ alone is the "seed of the woman". Not everything he says, or everything that the commentaries say, is wrong. But the premise which Weisman is attempting to establish by quoting them is wrong, so here I will only address some of the things which are wrong.
He quotes Adam Clarke who states concerning Christ that "He [is] the seed of the woman. The person is to come by the woman, and by her alone, without the concurrence of man." While Clarke is not completely wrong, that there is some legitimate symbolism in this, that does not mean that the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 is not collective. As we shall see, Adam Clarke certainly was wrong when he said in that same place that "this, and this alone, is what is implied in the promise of the seed of the woman bruising the head of the serpent." For now, we shall only state that if Adam Clarke was right, then Paul of Tarsus was wrong where he told the Romans that Yahweh would bruise Satan under their feet, over 30 years after the Crucifixion. I would rather believe Paul of Tarsus.
Immediately thereafter, Weisman cites the Wycliffe Bible Commentary, and he ignores the fact that Wycliffe actually supports our argument, evidently because Weisman was not focused on that portion of the citation. This actually helps to prove that Weisman is stupid. He says:
"Genesis 3:15 has become so thoroughly identified as a prophetic promise of Christ that is called the Protevangelium. This term means the beginning of the Gospel message. The Wycliffe Bible Commentary states the following on this verse: 'We have in this famous passage, called the protevangelium, 'first gospel,' the announcement of a prolonged struggle, perpetual antagonism, wounds on both sides, and eventual victory for the seed of the woman. God's promise that the head of the serpent was to be crushed pointed forward to the coming of Messiah and guaranteed victory. This assurance fell upon the ears of God's earliest creatures as a blessed hope of redemption.'"
The ministry of Christ lasted only three-and-a-half years, and while Christ told the scribes and Pharisees what He had thought about them, He certainly did not cause them any physical harm. Where the Wycliffe Bible Commentary explains that the verse indicates that there would be a "prolonged struggle, perpetual antagonism" and "wounds on both sides", it is evident that they had in mind two discernible groups of people who would be at odds with one another over a long period of time, fighting with and causing harm to one another over the entire period of time. Here we shall show that the Wycliffe commentators are correct, and Weisman is indeed stupid.
Other commentaries cited by Weisman on pages 12 through 14 of his book make remarks in reference to things such as the "complete destruction of Satan and his works", "fatal shall be the stroke which Satan shall receive from Christ", and they make these references in respect to the death of Christ. They are saying that the death of Chirst accomplished these things. Then Weisman cites Bullinger as saying that "zer'a (seed) is here to be taken in singular" and concerning other words in Genesis 3:15, that "They denote the temporary sufferings of the Seed [meaning Christ], and the complete destruction of Satan and his works (Heb. 2:14, 1 John 3:8)." Then he cites Matthew Henry as saying that Christ on the cross had gained "His victory over Satan thereby (by his death)."
We must contest all of these, in part by asking: Did Christ win victory in His death? Or did He really win victory in His Resurrection? Was His victory immediate at the time of His Resurrection, or was His ultimate victory, which would not culminate until some point in the future, merely assured at the time of His Resurrection? If His victory were immediate, then we may conclude that His Revelation is not true. Furthermore, if His victory were immediate, we should not expect to see any evil in the world since the time of His Resurrection. Yet His Revelation has proven itself to be true, although it was written 60 years after the Resurrection, and it describes a victory which would not occur until some undetermined time in the future, while we still have evil in the world.
Strangely, where he cited a comment from the Geneva Bible which said "Satan shall sting Christ and his members, but not overcome them", Weisman failed to make any statement concerning the phrase "and his members", or imagine them to be from of the seed of the woman as He is. Then, citing other commentaries, among Weisman's other conclusions he stated that "The evil power of Satan is eliminated by Christ, thus the victory is also over evil", and that "The serpent thus met his 'doom' with Christ's advent, passion, death and resurrection."
But is this true? Is Satan really dead and gone? Was Satan eliminated? Do we still have evil in the world? If any of this is true, why do we read, in Revelation chapter 12, that after the dragon tried to slay the man-child born of the woman, and after the man child is caught up into heaven, that: "13… when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. 14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. 15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. 16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. 17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."
Weisman is stupid. The Wycliffe Bible which he quoted said of Genesis 3:15 that "We have in this famous passage, called the protevangelium, 'first gospel,' the announcement of a prolonged struggle, perpetual antagonism, wounds on both sides, and eventual victory for the seed of the woman." But Revelation chapter 12 proves that this struggle is still ongoing after the man-child is caught up into heaven. The man-child which the serpent tried to kill is Yahshua Christ, who was caught up to heaven in Acts chapter 1, at the ascension which followed His resurrection.
The serpent was represented in that aspect by Herod, the Edomite Jew who descended in part from Cain himself. Then where it says that "the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed" we see the continuation of the enmity of Genesis 3:15, the continuation of Wycliffe's "prolonged struggle", and the Revelation describes that continuation all the way up to the time when the resurrected Christ would return again. Just before His ascension to heaven, in Acts chapter 1, the apostles asked Christ if He would deliver the kingdom to Israel at that time, and He told them only that it was not for them to know the times and seasons, when that would happen. We have been in that time ever since the ascension of Christ. The dragon, the collective seed of the serpent, continues to make war with the seed of the woman unto this very day.
Weisman is trying to deceive us into thinking that Satan is dead, eliminated, that we have no enemy, that satan is no longer with us and that the only problem is our own sin. I would agree that the principle problem is our own sin, but we have an obligation to identify our enemies, and that is the struggle which we still face today, and especially today since we are indeed in the days when Satan has the camp of the saints surrounded by all the nations, which are collective peoples, from the four corners of the earth. Weisman is blinding men to that struggle by preventing them from identifying the devil.
One cannot win a war unless one properly identifies the enemy.
If, in the Revelation of Christ, after a thousand years Satan would gather all nations from the four corners of the earth against the Camp of the Saints, how could Satan have been eliminated on the cross of Christ, and what is going on right now, as all Christendom is overrun with aliens? And why, in effect, is Weisman attempting to convince us that it is not Satan who is behind our being overrun with aliens? His deception must be purposeful, because what is happening today is an obvious fulfillment of Revelation chapter 20, and Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39.
The apostle Peter wrote "8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." It can be established that he wrote that at least thirty years after the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, so we see that the devil was still walking around tormenting people. Likewise, James wrote in chapter 4 of his epistle "7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." If the devil were merely the flesh, how could one's flesh flee from him? Then sixty years after the Resurrection, John wrote in more than one epistle, explaining that there were many antichrists in the world and telling his readers how to identify them. There he also explained that they were spirits – embodied spirits – which are not from God.
Likewise Paul of Tarsus had written in chapter 2 of his epistle to the Thessalonians that Satan was seated in the temple of God, pretending to be God. That was around 51 AD and Paul was speaking of the Edomite Jews who sat as high priests. So Satan was sitting in the temple of God 19 years after the Crucifixion, and all of Weisman's commentators are wrong because the power of Satan was obviously not destroyed. Then in his epistle to the Romans, written around 58 AD, Paul told them that "the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." Approximately 12 years later the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, where Satan was seated pretending to be God. But even that had not eliminated the devil entirely. Over thirty years after Peter wrote his epistle, John wrote the Revelation, and we see that Satan's seat had moved to Pergamos. Now today it has franchises in every single town and city in the world, and if Weisman would deny that reality then it proves that he too is just another one of his agents.
If the Revelation of Jesus Christ says that Satan's seat is in Pergamos, and says that there is a "synagogue of Satan" on several occasions, and that Satan would be loosed from the pit at some point in the future, and Peter tells us the devil is walking around, and John tells us there are many antichrists who were already born, along with all of this other evidence we have offered, how can Weisman not be lying where he says that Satan was "eliminated" at the cross? Maybe he is a shill. Maybe those who choose to follow Weisman today while rejecting our message are also shills.
Later in his book, Weisman discusses many of the same passages which we have used to refute his stupidity here. In the near future, we hope to refute his lies in those discussions as well, and we are confident that we shall refute them. For now, the point that the devil, or satan, continues to operate in the world after the Resurrection of Christ is proven, and its continued struggle with the seed of the woman is proven, so we are well on our way to establishing the fact that Charles Weisman is a fraud and a shill for the same devil who persecutes us.
Here we had an extemporaneous discussion where I cited Matthew 7:21-23 and Jude 4. Perhaps I will put the arguments in writing later in this series.
Refuting Weisman's lies, we have necessarily gotten ahead of him. We will resume our discussion on page 15 of Weisman's book when, Yahweh willing, we continue this series.
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‹ Addressing Charles Weisman's What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 2 up Addressing Charles Weisman's What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 4 ›

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Share this Story: 'Music gave him such great delight'
'Music gave him such great delight'
Patrick Kennedy
Apr 22, 2014 • April 22, 2014 • 4 minute read
In the capable fingers and feet of Norman Brown, an organ, even a behemoth with close to 3,000 pipes, pedals and pull levers, was child's play -- and played with childlike glee.
Anthems, hymns, Handel, it didn't matter -- all came out in flawless fashion with the noted musician at the controls.
Above all, he had a deep respect for the sanctity of the setting in which he played. For 33 years, Brown was organist and choir director at St. Mary's Cathedral and impetus for a $90,000 restoration of the massive pipe organ in the mid-'70s. Yet he never let the powerful instrument in the balcony take command.
"He loved music," recalled Msgr. Don Clement, St. Mary's pastor during some of Brown's time in the organ loft, "but he also had the gift of realizing that the music was there, as a part of the liturgy. to enhance the mass, not overcome it. He was always aware of the importance of allowing the liturgy to play its rightful role."
Brown, a retired Queen's professor and founding member of the Philosophy department at Memorial University in Newfoundland, died on Easter Saturday. He was 91.
"Music gave him such great delight," said second wife Jennifer Roche-Brown, "and he absolutely loved to improvise, on the organ and the piano."
Born in Dover, England, this son of a chemistry teacher inherited his passion for music from his piano-playing mother, who favoured pieces from Chopin, Mozart and Bach. The black baby grand that he played at home belonged to his mother.
Brown took up piano at the age of six and commenced organ lessons when he was 14, though the latter was soon sacrificed for school studies.
So he taught himself and became a dedicated student, a devoted disciple of practice.
He was organist at Westminster School in London, a private boys boarding school next to the Abbey. One thinks of Kingston Collegiate and Regiopolis-Notre Dame as old institutions. Brown's secondary school alma mater started churning out graduates in the 14th century and was believed to have been founded by Benedictine monks in 1179.
A disciplined student, he excelled academically and, as a member of the school's King's Scholars (captain, no less), sang at the the 1937 coronation of King George VI.
That later memory, which never left him, provided as much pleasure as any session on an organ or the 88s.
"That remained a special moment for Norman," noted his widow. (Brown's first wife, Catherine, the mother of his three children, died in 1993.) "He accomplished many wonderful things in his life, but the coronation was different, it was really a treasured moment."
Being in the company of royalty was nothing new for the teenaged Brown. Among the numerous titles assumed by a British monarch is: Visitor of Westminster School. Both throne-sitting Windsor brothers, Edward and George, paid visits to the school.
He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, moved to Canada in 1952 and spent 13 years in Newfoundland be before joining the Queen's faculty.
In 1975, Brown, a devout Catholic who converted from the Church of England before emigrating, volunteered for the job of organist at St. Mary's. On June 2, 2008, better than three decades later, he led his first and only public concert, a farewell performance, before descending the 31 wooden steps leading from the balcony one final time.
"He missed it, which is only natural," noted Jennifer Roche-Brown. "When you play an instrument for 33 years, it becomes a part of you."
Yet not once did he feel the urge to slip down to St. Mary's and fire up the 2,798-pipe organ.
"He was a sort of decisive person," she pointed out. "When he retired from that position, that was it. He was not one to dwell on things."
Retirement brought even more music, though now Brown was on the receiving end. He and Jennifer attended operas in Toronto and Kingston Symphony concerts. He was just as relaxed and entertained at the Gordon Lightfoot concert he and and his wife attended two years ago.
"Most of my strongest memories of my father are connected to music," said son Paul Brown, oldest of three Brown children. "Sitting on the organ bench when I was four or five, sitting in a pew while my father conducted choir practice. It really influenced my life."
Today the 61-year-old Alberta software developer is a seasoned baritone with both the Dutch-Canadian Choir of Calgary and the German Masters Choir.
Whenever one of the grandchildren or five great-grandchildren asked Brown to rekindle the story of the 'royal performance' in 1937 -- the King's Scholars sang precisely three words ('Vivat Rex, Regina') from the anthem I Was Glad -- the old man's eyes twinkled.
"What struck me was my father's pure delight in having been there and experienced that," said Paul Brown. "He still had the bound Order of Service and the thick cardboard security pass. It made a great story."
His son laughed in recollection of his father's humble self-critique of his own voice. "He used to say he sang with more enthusiasm than accuracy."
patrick.kennedy@sunmedia.ca
'Music gave him such great delight' Back to video


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Karen Suurtamm. Photo courtesy of Karen Suurtamm
Where Every Day Is Throwback Thursday
Karen Suurtamm helps bring the U of T Archives to students raised on social media
June 20, 2016 | By Staff
Can you describe your job?
I'm responsible for acquiring records at the archives and preserving, arranging and describing them, and making them accessible to researchers. The U of T archives collects university records from offices, faculties and governance bodies – and from individuals and organizations associated with U of T. I work closely with faculty members who are donating their papers. I recently worked on physicist and metallurgist Ursula Franklin's records, and philosopher Ian Hacking's records are next on my list. I also do social media and other outreach, like class instruction.
U of T Archives is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. What are you trying to accomplish with your social media platforms?
The number one message is: We exist. A lot of people don't know what the U of T Archives is. On April Fool's Day last year, I did fake post that we had turned the Reading Room into a cat café, and I photoshopped all these cats into a Reading Room picture. It was the university archivist's idea; we're all cat-obsessed. It was our most popular post. It doesn't do a lot of education, but because it got so many shares it was good for our profile.
I also try to showcase all of the resources we have, to encourage people to visit. We have 300,000 photos, but we also have 11 kilometres of textual records. We're a place where someone can come and write a scholarly book or thesis based on the material we have.
And it isn't just promotion: we're making U of T's history more widely accessible. Rather than waiting for researchers to come to us, we're pushing it out there to them.
U of T Archives recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. How has the role of archivist changed over the past decade or so?
One shift is to the electronic, for sure. Not just in terms of how we're delivering material to our audiences or researchers, but we are now responsible for preserving born-digital records – things like emails and word documents. We have presidents' correspondence going back to the beginning. Now the president's correspondence is mostly over email. The problem with born-digital records is that the technology quickly becomes outdated. That means archivists need to get involved with the people who are making records much earlier to make sure that we acquire them and start to manage them before they become obsolete. That's a huge challenge for the profession.
What is your favourite part of your job?
It is the outreach. Recently, a student from the Faculty of Medicine came in whose grandmother had also been a student. I was able to pull her grandmother's file: it had newspaper clippings, photos of her wedding day and a document that she had signed. She could connect to her own family's experience through the records. I like those moments. It's nice to be able to put those things in front of people and watch them get excited about it.
Does this sense of connection ever happen on social media?
You don't always get the feedback, but there are moments of connection like when I posted mathematician John Field's notebooks, and someone from The Fields Institute tweeted at us and said, 'Oh, I didn't realize you had that' and asked to come in and look at them. My favourite thing on Instagram is when people tag other people, because I think that's more than just saying, 'Oh wow, cool.' People are saying, 'Hey, you, check this out.'
Which of the archives' social media accounts is your favourite?
I've always loved photography, so I really enjoy curating our Instagram account. As our feed grows and you can look through all these little square images, you see the history of U of T before your eyes.
I think sometimes people feel intimidated by the archives. Can you counteract this at all on social media?
I share photos of our space and the day-to-day of what we get up to in order to demystify the archives. When we had to move the Dunlap Observatory's giant scrapbook up to the observatory for its anniversary, I took a time-lapse video of the archivists wrapping the book up with bubble tape. I want to do more behind-the-scenes posts. It puts a human face on what we do.
Check out @UTArchives on Twitter.
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