SUBJECT: JERUSALEM 

1. **ISRAEL** BECAME A STATE IN 1312 B.C., TWO MILLENNIA BEFORE ISLAM; 

  Wrong. A princedom called Israel came to existence 500 years later, and
  it had no relation to the ‘Jews’ who appeared a millennium later. ‘Jews’
  are not even mentioned in the Torah of Moses, only in the very late
  books of Esther and Ezra. Islam, or belief in One God, was established
  by Abraham/Ibrahim a millennium earlier, while Muhammad just returned to
  its roots. 

2. ARAB REFUGEES FROM **ISRAEL** BEGAN CALLING THEMSELVES "PALESTINIANS"
IN 1967, TWO DECADES AFTER (MODERN) ISRAELI STATEHOOD; 

  Wrong. The native dwellers of Palestine were called “Palestinians” by
  Herodotes in 5th century BC, 2500 years before (modern) Israeli
  statehood; but Herodotes never heard of Jews, though he walked across
  the whole land. Jews appeared three hundred years later. 

3. AFTER CONQUERING THE LAND IN 1272 B.C., JEWS RULED IT FOR A THOUSAND
YEARS AND MAINTAINED A CONTINUOUS PRESENCE THERE FOR 3,300 YEARS; 

  Wrong. The Jews conquered the land in 168 BC and ruled it for 100 years
  until Palestine was liberated by the Roman general Pompey the Great for
  they killed and pillaged the natives overmuch. Another 100 years later,
  there was not a single Jew in Jerusalem. 

4. THE ONLY ARAB RULE FOLLOWING CONQUEST IN 633 B.C. LASTED JUST 22
YEARS; 

  Wrong. King Herod (1st century BC) was as full-blooded Arab as Omar ibn
  Hattab (7th century AD) and as the Mayor of united Jerusalem, Ragheb
  Nashashibi in 20th century. 

5. FOR OVER 3,300 YEARS, **JERUSALEM** WAS THE JEWISH CAPITAL. IT WAS
NEVER THE CAPITAL OF ANY ARAB OR MUSLIM ENTITY. EVEN UNDER JORDANIAN
RULE, 

  Wrong. Jerusalem was the capital of Jews for 100 years (2nd – 1st
  century BC), and it was the capital of Christian Kingdom for 100 years,
  and a capital of a Muslim and Christian province for 1900 years, while
  it was the holy place of pilgrimage for all its history. 

(EAST) **JERUSALEM** WAS NOT MADE THE CAPITAL, AND NO ARAB LEADER CAME
TO VISIT IT; 

  Jerusalem was the centre of pilgrimage, and Arab, Muslim and Christian
  leaders came to venerate there, until being forbidden to enter by the
  Jews, while [first PM] David Ben Gurion went to New York before he came
  to visit Jerusalem, and [first President] Haim Weitzman hated the city. 

6. **JERUSALEM** IS MENTIONED OVER 700 TIMES IN THE BIBLE, BUT NOT ONCE
IS IT MENTIONED IN THE QUR'AN; 

  Wrong. Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Torah of Moses even once, while
  there are thousands of Muslim stories about Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is
  the place of Crucifixion and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 
  
7. KING DAVID FOUNDED **JERUSALEM**; MOHAMMED NEVER SET FOOT IN IT; 

  Wrong. Jerusalem was founded six hundred years before King David, who
  was a Muslim prophet and ancestor of Christ anyway, and the Prophet
  Muhammad prayed there in his praying place, while one of the most
  important events in life of Muhammad (al-Miraj) took place in Jerusalem
  as described in Koran. Jewish connection to King David? They bombed this
  hotel! 

8. JEWS PRAY FACING **JERUSALEM**; MUSLIMS FACE **MECCA**. IF THEY ARE
BETWEEN THE TWO CITIES, MUSLIMS PRAY FACING **MECCA**, WITH THEIR BACKS
TO **JERUSALEM**; 

  Christians and Muslims venerate God in Jerusalem, Jews crucified Him
  there. 

9. IN 1948, ARAB LEADERS URGED THEIR PEOPLE TO LEAVE, PROMISING TO
CLEANSE THE LAND OF JEWISH PRESENCE. 68% OF THEM FLED WITHOUT EVER
SETTING EYES ON AN ISRAELI SOLDIER; 

  In 2006, Jewish leaders did not ask their people to leave, but 70% of
  them ran away from the North in fear of Hizbollah missiles without ever
  setting eyes on a Lebanese guerrilla. 

10. VIRTUALLY THE ENTIRE JEWISH POPULATION OF MUSLIM COUNTRIES HAD TO
FLEE AS THE RESULT OF VIOLENCE AND POGROMS; 

  Virtually entire Christian and Muslim population of Jerusalem was
  forcefully expelled from the Jewish occupation zone in 1948, while the
  Jews of Iraq, Morocco and Egypt enjoyed peace and prestige. 

11. SOME 630,000 ARABS LEFT ISRAEL IN 1948, WHILE CLOSE TO A MILLION
JEWS WERE FORCED TO LEAVE THE MUSLIM COUNTRIES; 

  Arab Jews were seduced or forced by Zionists to leave their homes, while
  the Palestinians were expelled by the same Zionists. 

12. IN SPITE OF THE VAST TERRITORIES AT THEIR DISPOSAL, ARAB REFUGEES
WERE DELIBERATELY PREVENTED FROM ASSIMILATING INTO THEIR HOST COUNTRIES.
OF 100 MILLION REFUGEES FOLLOWING WORLD WAR 2, THEY ARE THE ONLY GROUP
TO HAVE NEVER INTEGRATED WITH THEIR CORELIGIONISTS. MOST OF THE JEWISH
REFUGEES FROM **EUROPE** AND **ARAB LANDS** WERE SETTLED IN **ISRAEL**,
A COUNTRY NO LARGER THAN NEW **JERSEY**; 

  The Palestinians are forever faithful to Palestine, while Jews do not
  mind to change countries and allegiances. 

13. THERE ARE 22 MUSLIM COUNTRIES, NOT COUNTING **PALESTINE**. THERE IS
ONLY ONE JEWISH STATE. ARABS STARTED ALL FIVE WARS AGAINST **ISRAEL**,
AND LOST EVERY ONE OF THEM; 

  Jews live in 160 states, and sit in parliaments of 10 countries; there
  are or were Jewish premier ministers in France, Russia, Austria etc. In
  the Jewish state, there are no goy ministers, and goyim - whether
  Christian or Muslim - have no full rights, even if they were born there. 
  
  Arabs started only one war, in 1973, and were victorious then, and in
  2006 as well. The Jews won only one war, in 1967, because they
  perfidiously attacked without declaring the war. 

14. FATAH AND HAMAS CONSTITUTIONS STILL CALL FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF
**ISRAEL**. **ISRAEL** CEDED MOST OF THE WEST BANK AND ALL OF **GAZA**
TO THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, AND EVEN PROVIDED IT WITH ARMS; 

  “Destruction of Israel” means elimination of its racist character, like
  destruction of the Aryan Third Reich eliminated its racism, but
  preserved Germany. “Destruction” of Dixie, or of Rhodesia was also
  blessing for all concerned. 
  
  Israel ceded nothing to the PNA but the right to clean streets. Israeli
  army and police may, and does, enter anyplace in the West Bank and Gaza
  which remain surrounded by the Jewish forces. 

15. DURING THE JORDANIAN OCCUPATION, JEWISH HOLY SITES WERE VANDALIZED
AND WERE OFF LIMITS TO JEWS. UNDER ISRAELI RULE, ALL MUSLIM AND
CHRISTIAN HOLY SITES ARE ACCESSIBLE TO ALL FAITHS; 

  The Jews do not allow any Muslim below age of 45 to pray in the Mosque
  of al Aqsa, they do not allow Christians of Bethlehem to celebrate
  Easter in Jerusalem and do not allow Christians of Jerusalem to
  celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem. 

16. OUT OF 175 UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS UP TO 1990, 97 WERE AGAINST **ISRAEL**; 
    OUT OF 690 GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTIONS, 429 WERE AGAINST **ISRAEL**; 

  And Israel accepted and fulfilled only one of them - the one which equated Zionism with racism. 

18. THE U.N. WAS SILENT WHEN THE JORDANIANS DESTROYED 58 SYNAGOGUES IN
THE **OLD CITY** OF **JERUSALEM**. IT REMAINED SILENT WHILE **JORDAN**
SYSTEMATICALLY DESECRATED THE ANCIENT JEWISH CEMETERY ON THE **MOUNT OF
OLIVES**, AND IT REMAINED SILENT WHEN **JORDAN** ENFORCED APARTHEID LAWS
PREVENTING JEWS FROM ACCESSING THE **TEMPLE MOUNT** AND WESTERN WALL. 

  The Jews destroyed one thousand mosques and churches in 1948; they
  besieged the Church of Nativity in 2002. Jews also desecrated
  hundreds of Christian and Muslim cemeteries, turned the mosque of
  Caesarea into a bar, and demolished the 5th century Church of St
  Barbara. Jews also enforced apartheid laws preventing goyim from coming
  back to the places they were born. 

THESE ARE TRYING TIMES. WE MUST ASK OURSELVES WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING,
AND WHAT WE WILL TELL OUR GRANDCHILDREN ABOUT OUR ACTIONS DURING THIS
CRISIS, WHEN WE HAD THE CHANCE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. 

START NOW! SEND THIS MESSAGE TO 20 FRIENDS, AND ASK EACH OF THEM TO 

SEND IT TO 20 MORE. JEWISH OR NOT, IT DOES NOT MATTER. 

  That’s right! Do it! 

TRUTH AND PEACE ARE VALUES COMMON TO ALL OF US. EVERYONE MUST KNOW! 

  Let them! 

  www.israelshamir.net 
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HEROD THE GREAT: 

AN ARABIC KING OF ISRAEL 

Herod the Great, who reigned over Palestine from 37 to 4 B.C., is famous
as he was accused to have achieved the presumed massacre of the
innocents. The only prosecutor was the evangelist Mattew (2.1-18). 

Even ignoring the objections referring to the year and the place of
birth of Jesus, we can assert that: 

- Herod had not the authority to sentence death without the approval of
the Sanhedrim and in some important cases without the explicit approval
of the Romans. 

- If Herod had issued such an order Rome would have stopped him, if not
for humaneness, certainly to avoid breaches of the peace. 

Herod was a great king, enemy of the Hebraic religious integralisme,
continuator of the work of Alexander the Great: a common culture for the
West and the East without ethnic or religious distinctions. For this
vision of him and for his Arabic origin he was slandered by the Jewish
tradition that transformed him in a bloodthirsty monster. The first
Christians, culturally Hebrew, continued this tradition. 

Locality: Palestine 

Age: 73-4 B.C. 

The origins 

Herod the Great was born about 73 B.C. by Idumean father, Antipater, and
by an Arabic mother, Cyprus, indigenous of Petra, capital of the
Nabataeans. Idumaea, a region between the reign of Judah and the desert
of the Negev, had been conquered by the Hebrews and its inhabitants were
converted forcedly to Hebraism at the times of the asmonean king Jhon
Hyrcanus (135-104 B.C.), approximately fifty years before. 

Herod had three brothers (Joseph, Fasael, Ferora) and one sister,
Salomè. 

Antipater: the father 

Herod's father, an Idumean nobleman, was councellor of the king Hyrcanus
II. Hyrcanus, of the dynasty of the asmonean, had come to the throne in
67 B.C. at the death of his mother Alessandra. The younger brother
Aristobulos had begun a civil war in order to get hold of the throne,
succeeding to drive Hyrcanus out of Jerusalem. Then Hyrcanus had asked
help to Arab Nabateans and to Pompeius the Great. 

In the 63 B.C. Pompeius freed Jerusalem, gave the throne back to
Hyrcanus and sent to Rome Aristobulos and his sons. 

Antipater, who at the time of Queen Alexandra had been governor of the
native Idumaea, immediately took the part of Hyrcanus and it helped him
in his relationship with the Romans. He was friend of Pompeius and at
the right moment of Cesar, who named him epitropos of the Judah, a title
not official but that recognized to the Idumean one an authority
deriving from the Romans. 

The beginnings of Herod 

In 47 B.C. Antipater named Herod governor of the Galilee and Fasael, his
brother, governor of Jerusalem. 

Herod manifested himself decided in fighting marauders and put Ezechia
and his band to death. The Sanhedrim, dominated by the conservatives,
did not appreciate of having been supplanted in death sentences and put
Herod under accusation . Sextus Caesar, the Roman governor of Syria,
defended Herod and entrusted him with an important task, perhaps he
named him governor of Coele Syria and Samaria. 

The Roman civil war 

In 44 B.C. Julius Caesar was killed and Cassius Longinus, one of the
conspirators, went to Syria in order to collect troops and money for the
civil war. 

Antipater and Herod sided with Cassius. Herod saw his powers widened and
had at his disposal a fleet and an army. 

In 43 B.C. Antipater was killed by Malico, exponent of the conservative
antiroman opposition. Malico was killed at Tyre by a group of Romans,
perhaps pushed by Herod. 

Herod and Marc Antony 

In the autumn of 42 B.C. Antony and Octavianus defeated Brutus and
Cassius, who killed themselves. Herod, really skillful, ran to Ephesus
to the winner and obtained his friendship, in addition to the title of
tetrarch, that was given to Fasael too. 

Antigonus and the Parthians 

In the 40 B.C. Antigonus, the son of Aristobulos, younger brother of
Hyrcanus, formed an alliance with the Parthians who invaded Palestine
and removed Hyrcanus from the throne, to whom ears were cut. Hyrcanus,
due to his impairment could have claimed the throne no more. Fasael was
captured and killed while he was dealing with the Parthians. 

Herod escaped in the fortress of Masada. Then, entrusted the defense to
his brother Joseph, he went towards Petra, but the king of the Nabateans
Malco did not want to receive him. Then Herod went to Egypt at
Cleopatra, then to Rhodes, to Brindisi and finally to Rome at Antony. 

King without reign 

At the end of 40 B.C. Antony convinced the Roman Senate to name Herod
king of Judah, allied and friend of the Roman people. 

In the spring of 39 B.C. Herod disembarked at Ptolemais (Acco, Acri) on
the coast of high Galilee. It gathered an army, freed his brother Joseph
besieged at Masada and began the fight against Antigonus. 

In February of 37 B.C. he began to besiege Jerusalem. After five months,
with the aid of the Roman troops of Sosius, he entered the city. The
Romans took Antigonus, who later was made killed by Antony. Herod had
his reign. 

The land to the peasants 

To the peasants without land Herod gave in rent immense portions of his
lands with the obligation to cultivate them. He reclaimed lands, made
canalizations for the irrigation, helped the constitution of model farms
. He yielded cleared lands to the peasants who had lost their land.
Herod's agricultural politics had great succes and Octavianus gave to
Herod other regions outside his reign. 

Expropriation of the noble ones 

Herod found lands and the resources in order to value them,
expropriating the aristocracy that had supported Antigonus and taking
control of all the assets of the Asmoneans. 

Herod in transactions 

Herod earned a lot renting from Cleopatra cultivations of balsamina,
used for the preparation of ointments, incenses, cosmetics. 

He exploited the deposits of asphalt of the Dead Sea. 

He carried out, like his father, activity of banking type lend money to
principles and kings. 

In 12 B.C. he rented from Augustus the copper mines of Cyprus. 

The constructions 

Herod built palaces and castles of Jerusalem, Jericho, Sepphoris in
Galilee, Bethrampta in Perea, of Ascalona, the Herodion, the fortress of
Hyrcania. he made many works in order to render the fortress of Masada
safer. 

He founded the city of Antipatrides, today Ras el' ain, and of
Fasaelides, today Chirbet fas'il. 

He constructed sports centers, theatres, aqueducts, roads, ports. 

In 27 B.C. he began the reconstruction of Samaria, called Sebaste. 

In 22 B.C. he began the reconstruction of Caesarea and of its port,
inaugurated in 9 B.C. 

Towards 20 B.C. it began the reconstruction of the temple of Jerusalem,
inaugurated in 10 B.C. 

The public order 

He fought against the marauders of the desert. He exterminated the gangs
that wandered about in the frontier regions. He held the Arabs who were
beyond the Jordan at bay. 

Friend of Octavianus 

Antony was defeated by Octavianus at Actium the 2 September of 31 B.C.
Herod readily helped the governor of Syria engaged in repressing a
putsch of followers of Antony. Then he went to Rhodes in order to meet
Octavianus and to put himself at his service. He obtained the
confirmation of his reign and had back the lands that Cleopatra had
taken. Moreover Samaria , the cities of Ippo and Gadara, and some
coastal cities were entrusted to him. The guard of Cleopatra,
constituted by 400 Galatians, became his personal guard. 

Herod changed the name of Samaria in Sebaste, sebastòs in Greek means
Augustus. 

Shows 

Making to horrify the conservative Hebrew he promoted athletic shows and
circensian games. Beginning from 28 B.C. he introduced the quinquennial
games, like the Olympic games. 

Protector of Hebrews of Diaspora 

The Hebrews of the Ionia had demanded to the Romans of being exempted
from the military service, of considering to all the effects festive the
saturday and therefore not to be cited in judgment in such day, of not
being forced to assume expensive public office, etc. Herod in 14 B.C.
addressed his friend Agrippa and succeeded to obtain what the Hebrews
asked. 

Difficult relationships with the Pharisees 

In 6 B.C. he proceeded against the Pharisees who had vaticinated that,
with the birth of the Messiah, the reign of Herod would come to the end.

In 4 B.C. some young people, pushed by the Pharisees, pulled down the
Eagle that Herod had placed at the entrance of the temple of Jerusalem.
He immediately ordered that they were arrested and condemned. 

Death of Herod 

At the end of March or at the first days of April of 4 B.C. Herod died
after a long disease . 
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