Israeli Soldier Oren Shares Gaza Story
Published On Friday, February 17, 2006 5:47 AM
By SHIFRA B. MINCER
Crimson Staff Writer
![]() |
|
Except this time, it was Jew versus Jew.
Oren said of the settlers: "Their rabbis told then that God would send a miracle at the last minute. We walked into houses where people were eating lunch. They hadn’t packed a tea cup. We had to sit and talk with them for hours."
At a second settlement, Bedolach, in the southeastern section of Gaza, Oren said that he and his fellow soldiers broke through synagogue walls, finding 100 men, women and children "on the floor, screaming in agony."
According to Oren, he and his fellow soldiers were shell-shocked by the scene. "I saw soldiers go down as if they had been hit by bullets. There were settlers helping soldiers to their feet. Everyone was crying hysterically," he said.
Oren explained that the Gaza disengagement was painful, but that—in his opinion—it allowed Israel to gain worldwide recognition as a country willing to compromise.
"Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza greatly increased Israel’s level of support internationally," he said. "The support for Israel among Americans is now higher than ever before."
"The Gaza disengagement, with all the trauma that it involved, will be the precedent for the future. This is an exquisitely painful process, but I think that a solid majority at least understood that this was unavoidable," Oren said.
"The paradigm for Israel has been to capture a territory and then negotiate with an Arab country to recognize its existence," he said.
But according to Oren, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has "changed the paradigm."
"Yes, we are willing to negotiate with a Palestinian leadership if it wants a stable and permanent two state solution. If not, we will withdraw unilaterally," Oren said.
Oren’s account of the Gaza disengagement prompted questions and criticisms from Arab students in the audience.
"I wish I could hear him say more about the Palestinian side," said Divinity School student Hayfa M. Abdul Jaber, a Palestinian who was born and raised in Kuwait and who is now enrolled in one of Oren’s courses.
Huda Abuarquob, a resident of the West Bank city of Hebron and a master’s student at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia, said she recognized that the disengagement was "heartbreaking" from Israelis’ perspective. But, she said, "it’s trauma from all sides."
Meanwhile, Oren’s talk garnered rave reviews from members of Harvard Students for Israel (HSI), which sponsored the event.
HSI President Amy M. Zelcer ’07 said that Oren’s semester on campus is "a fantastic opportunity for HSI and for students in general"—especially considering what she says is Harvard’s lack of Middle East experts on its faculty.
Oren’s 2002 book, "Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East," was a New York Times best-seller and won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for History.
—Staff writer Shifra B. Mincer can be reached at smincer@fas.harvard.edu.
![]() |
Not only did the Bush administration
dash neoconservative hopes by leaving Saddam in place, but its proposed "New
World Order," as implemented by Secretary of State James Baker, conflicted
with neoconservative/Israeli goals, being oriented toward placating the Arab
coalition that supported the war. That entailed an effort to curb Israeli
control of her occupied territories. The Bush administration demanded that
Israel halt the construction of new settlements in the occupied territories
as a condition for receiving
$10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees for Israel's resettlement of hundreds of
thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Although Bush would
cave in to American pro-Zionist pressure just prior to the November 1992
election, his resistance
disaffected many neocons, causing some, such as Safire, to back Bill Clinton
in the 1992 election.
[13]
|
July 28, 2005
![]() |
Referring to Israel's reported request for American aid to pay for the relocating of settlers and military bases in the Gaza Strip, Reuters reporter Dan Williams wrote: |
The Gaza plan funding could be the biggest U.S. aid package to Israel since 1992, when Washington paid $3 billion to make up for damage sustained from Iraqi missile salvoes in the Gulf war. ("Israel seeks $2.2 billion from U.S. for Gaza pullout," 7/11/05)
![]() |
![]() |
|||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
![]() |
Copyright © 2006 The President and Fellows of Harvard College | ![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Recounted in the Encyclopedia Judaica, proudly published in Jerusalem, were the deaths of 500 Jews out of 150,000 Jews living in America during the Civil War. 1 This contribution was pridefully remembered in 1992 in the Jewish Veteran, the newspaper of the Jewish War Veterans.2 This benefaction computed to one Jew out of three hundred Jews dying in the war, or a little over three per thousand. From a population of a about 32 million in the United States in 1860 a total approaching 625,000 Americans died, or almost 20 per thousand. Other Americans died six times more frequently than Jews. In 1996 the Jewish War Veterans boasted they were the oldest veteran group in the United States. They had been formed in 1896 to refute the allegation that Jews ducked service in the Civil War.
WW1
The Jewish War Records Board gave the number of Jews dying at 3500. Americans not black or Jewish died at a rate some 40% higher than Jews. Some may state that ethnic Russians comprised a significant part of those born in Russia and should lower the share for Jews. But ethnic Russians simply did not come to the United States in significant numbers. The salient fact that Jews had been awarded six Medals of Honor out of 120 awarded was noted by Jewish War Records Board. These medals were more than would have been expected by pure chance.
WW 2
With rising affluence Jews in spite of the personal insult and threat of Nazi anti-Semitism did not fight as much as their fellow countrymen in World War II. In two volumes the Jewish National Welfare Board celebrated their participation in World War II under the auspicious title American Jews in World War II.5 As of July 1, 1946 the board had identified 8000 Jews as having died in combat. 408306 Americans died in WW11 Jews would receive one (later revised to two) Medals of Honor out of over 430 awarded.6 If they had fought in the same proportion as their countrymen, they would have received about 18 medals. Years later the Anti-Defamation League would shriek about discrimination toward one Jew by the American army even when the man had transparently lied about his exploits.
Vietnam
There were 58,000 dead and a maximum of 269 dead jews. . Vietnam War dead used data in the Southeast Asia Combat Area Casualties File in the National Archives and concluded after a computer count that 269 Jews died in that conflict 8 Later this information was discreetly published on the internet and not publicized.9 Other Americans died at a rate more than six times as much as Jews.
Beirut
Almost as an anecdote the Beirut bombing in 1983 revealed that not one of the 220 Marines killed was a Jew.12 Maury Maverick, who uncovered that statistic, had found while representing conscientious objectors during the war in Vietnam that the underprivileged had suffered way out of proportion to their numbers.
Desert Storm
For the war against Iraq the Jewish Welfare Board estimated out of about 520,000 American troops in the Gulf only 500 were Jews. 13 If Jews had been there in proportion to their numbers, almost 13,000, some 25 times the number present, would have been in uniform. Mr. Maverick found that not one of the 386 Americans who died was a Jew.14 Later in the pages of the New York Times there was an attempt to revise the total of Jews present in the war zone upward as had been done in previous wars to bolster the image of Jews.15
British Jews in WW 2
Participation by Jews in that war was lower than their countrymen who died at two to three times the Jewish rate. 17 The determined reader will confirm these observations for himself. Lack of full participation in wars by Jews has not been confined to the United States. In both World War I Germany and World War II America non-Jews died a rate more than 50 percent greater than their fellow Jewish citizenry.
Jews compiled the data
Excepting the data on the Vietnam War, the dead of the Gulf War and the Beirut bombing, all data were taken from sources compiled by Jews and meant to be friendly to them. For World Wars I and II Jews were permitted to see official American records to determine who was a Jew and who was not. If done by non-Jews, this appraisal would be considered a racist act. American Jews have shirked military duty with its obligations and hazards and have insolently lied about it. They have subordinated American interests to those of Israel.
Today just over
1,300 chaplains minister to the slightly fewer than 500,000 active-duty Army troops. The vast majority of chaplains are Christians--1,183 are Protestant, 95 Catholic and eight Orthodox. In addition, the Army has nine Jewish and seven Muslim chaplains. That roughly mirrors the troops themselves, 54% of whom list themselves as Protestant and 21% as Catholic. Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists combined amount to less than 1%, with 24% of soldiers listing either some other religion or no religious preference.
Breakdown of Vietnam dead
................ % of USA population .................Vietnam Dead %
Protestant…...….. 136010000 ………(67.0) …. 37483 …….(64.4)
Catholic………….. 50750000 ……...(25.0) ….. 16806……. (28.9)
Jewish
……………....6090000….….. (3.0) …… 269……….. (0.4)
Other…………….. ...5400000…….. (2.6)..…… 262 ………..(0.4)
None/Unknown…...…4750000…….. ……........ 3332 ……….(5.7)
If we use
the religious preference percentages we can see that Catholics were
over-represented -almost 29.0% against a natl preference of 25% In the genl
population, while Protestants were slightly under-represented- 64.4 of the V'nam
casualties against a natl preference of 67.0%.
The low
Jewish representation was probably due, in large part, to the high rate of
under-graduate & post-graduate matriculation among young Jewish males, estimated
at 2 to 3 times that of Protestant & Catholic 17-24 year olds nationwide.
|
In 1973 the Jews were getting their asses kicked. Nixon airlifted F-4 Phantoms
and pilots to the Jews - The arabs said " Oil is now $ 35 a barrel ".
Nixon sent US pilots and Phantoms in 1973
The USA uses 20 million barrels of oil a day and our backing of the 1973 Jewish
war resulted in a increase of $ 25 a barrel.
Here are the figures
20 Mil Barrels
x 365 days
7,300 Mil Barrels
x $ 25
===============
$ 1.825 Trillion a year
This is why cars cost $ 30,000 and a husband and wife both work.
The jews don't cost $ 3 bill a year.
Just in the oil price they cost you $ 1.825 Trillion ANNUALLY
|