General
Wednesday January 31, Attachment Regan
Republican Party & Crazy Critics
Republicans from all over the state gathered earlier this month in Boise for the IDGOP Winter meeting. Every six months the 218 members of the Idaho Republican State Central Committee gather to take care of party business. This Winter Meeting was a total success. Not only was all business accomplished, but it was done in record time.
The Idaho Republican Party is a bottom-up, grassroots organization. At the base are the Precinct Committeemen. Every two years during the May primary the Republican voters in each of Idaho’s 976 precincts elect their precinct committeeman. These Precinct Committeemen are organized into County Central Committees for each of Idaho’s 44 counties and into Legislative District Committees for each of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts.
Each of these county and legislative district committees elects a Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Secretary. County Central Committees also elect a State Committeeman, State Committeewoman and Youth Committeeperson.
Idaho is also organized into seven (ten after May 2024) regions. The county and legislative district chairmen and the State Committeemen, State Committeewomen and Youth Committeepersons in each region elect a Region Chairman, Region Vice Chairman and Region Secretary.
All this organizing and electing is done within two weeks of the May primary and is followed by the Idaho Republican Party State Convention, which this year will be in Coeur d’Alene starting on June 13th. The approximately 700 delegates to the convention are elected by the County Central Committees. Any affiliated Republican can be nominated to be a delegate.
At the Convention the delegates vote on any amendments to the State Party Platform and elect the State Party Chairman, First and Second Vice-Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer. Every four years we also elect a National Committeeman and National Committeewoman who represent Idaho at the Republican National Committee. These seven officers along with the Region Chairman form the State Executive Committee.
The 218 members of the State Central Committee have the final word on adoption of new or amended rules and resolutions. They are the ultimate authority for party business.
An example of this is when someone is aggrieved by some violation of party rules they can file a complaint with the Chairman who will render a decision within 60 days. If someone is aggrieved by the chairman’s decision they can appeal to the State Executive Committee. Finally, if someone is aggrieved by the Executive Committee decision they can appeal to the State Central Committee, the ultimate judicial authority.
The rules of the Republican Party have been improved and refined over time, usually in response to a situation or new requirement. ANY of the 976 precinct committeeman can propose a rule change, but that proposal must be passed by a majority vote by at least one county or legislative district committee. Depending on the size of the county, these committees can have as few as three members or over two hundred.
Once the proposed rule has been approved by at least one committee it can be submitted for consideration at the next State Central Committee meeting, like the one that just happened on January 5th and 6th.
To be considered by the State Central Committee the proposed rule must first be reviewed and passed by the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee members are appointed by the Region Chairmen and the State Chairman appoints the Rules Committee Chairman and Vice-chairman. The Rules Chairman runs the meeting but does not debate or vote unless there is a tie vote.
The Rules Committee reviews the proposed rules, debates it merits, amends the proposed rule if needed, and then finally votes on if the proposed rule will be part of the Rules Committee Report to the State Central Committee.
During this Winter Meeting the Rules Committee met for four hours and considered 17 proposed rules. Of those 17, only six received enough votes to be included in the report to the State Central Committee and four of those were amended by the committee.
Clear minded people see that the Republican Party is structured so that the Chairman does not have dictatorial power and that our processes are open at the beginning to allow any idea to start the process while at the same time there are three layers of committees that the proposal must pass through before finally becoming a new rule or resolution. Claims that the Chairman can push through rules are patently absurd, but being absurd or outright crazy comes naturally to some critics.
Unfortunately the media pretends that all proposals come from the top and then they howl about how horrible the Republicans are for even considering a proposed rule.
A news outlet in Boise ran a several minute piece about a proposed rule that would have prevented a politician from using the Republican brand for 5 years if they repeatedly voted against fundamental Republican principles as enumerated in the Platform. They claimed our chairman was actively trying to control who could run for office and restrict voter rights. This is crazy talk.
If that rule had passed it would only have prevented the politician from using the Republican brand. That’s it. They could still have run for office and people could still vote for them. But that rule did not pass out of the Rules Committee. What did pass was a rule establishing an appellate process for politicians who are accused of violating platform principles. This rule reinforces and broadened due process and fair treatment. Apology? Nope.
Critics of the Republican Party seem determined to be critical, even if they have to misrepresent or even fabricate facts. It is best to ignore these crazy claims and judge the Republican Party for what it does, not what the agenda driven media claims it wants to do.
It’s just common sense.
Wednesday January 31, 2024 Attachment Regan
Are You Brainwashed?
The short answer is yes, we all are to some degree brainwashed. Our society is flooded with competing messages designed to influence your viewpoint and perceptions. Some brainwashing efforts are small and localized while others involve the entire country or even the world. Regardless of scale, every stream of information seems to have a bias.
The reasons for this are power and money. So called “news” sources have a financial interest in attracting as many eyeballs as possible. Revenue is a direct function of attention, so their programming is structured to get as much attention as possible by feeding their audience exactly the information they want to receive and let confirmation bias build viewer loyalty. There is no penalty for lying or misrepresenting the facts, but there is an immediate penalty for a loss of viewers so the truth is sacrificed for clicks and views.
Remember that reality is a construct within every individual’s mind. What you perceive as reality is the sum of all the information you have received and no two people receive exactly the same information. In the information age, most of what you “know” about the outside world doesn’t come from direct experience. What do you know of the situation in Ukraine other than what you have been told by people who have no direct knowledge?
If everyone is brainwashed to some degree then can you tell how badly you are brainwashed? Unfortunately you can’t in absolute terms, but there are clues to follow. People who are highly brainwashed are far from reality and if you don’t understand the reality of a situation then you cannot predict what will happen next.
In 2016 Democrats brainwashed themselves into thinking Trump couldn’t win. They were devastated when he did. In 2020 Republicans brainwashed themselves into believing Trump couldn’t lose to dementia basement Biden. They were devastated when he did….or did he?
Politicians and their parties have little incentive to be truthful. Hyperbolic statements and spin are normal, even expected. There are even examples of “designated liars,” people like Adam Schiff or John Brennan who are trotted out whenever a real whopper of a lie needs to be offered up for public brainwashing. The “Hunter Biden Laptop is Russian disinformation” lie is one example of many.
One of the best examples of a brainwashing campaign is the January 6 Insurrection narrative. You likely have a strong opinion about that event. First question, were you there? If not then everything you know about J6 was fed to you by biased sources. Second question, has anyone presented a rational scenario where unarmed protestors sauntering through the US Capitol building could overpower the world’s most powerful country, its military and its courts and gain access to the nuclear launch codes? No? Unless you have the “means” you don’t have a crime. We have been told it was an insurrection, but nobody has been charged with that crime. Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth. Feeling brainwashed yet?
If you watched the J6 hearing and saw justice served, then you were brainwashed. If you watched the J8 hearing and saw political theater, you resisted the brainwashing.
Half the country thinks that banning a candidate from running for office is protecting “democracy.” I thought democracy is where the people, not the courts decide. Where are you on this? Brainwashed or not?
The scope of this brainwashing proves it can be done on a large scale, which means doing it on a small scale should be easy, and it is.
The current voter initiative campaign is attempting to brainwash people into believing Ranked Choice Voting and eliminating political party primaries will somehow “open” elections to more participation. Using this logic, Idaho should allow residents of other states and non-citizens to vote in Idaho elections, making them even more “open.” If you recognize the absurdity of that argument then you have resisted the brainwashing.
Locally there is a small group of Never-Trumpers and Biden supporters, the “North Idaho Republicans” (NIR), who want you to believe that members of the official Republican Party should have their freedom of speech restricted when it comes to some elections. They say Republicans should not recommend candidates. These same people, who claim to be Republicans, have no problem giving their candidate endorsement as they try to brainwash you into believing that they represent the Republican Party. Again, if you recognize the absurdity of their argument then you have resisted the brainwashing.
Remember how those with a good grasp of reality can better predict the future? If you understand what voters want you can predict and support the winning candidate. Candidates that NIR endorses typically lose their elections. During the last Republican Primary, none of their backed candidates won in Kootenai County while all of the candidates recommended by your official Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, the KCRCC, won in Kootenai County.
Why? Maybe it is because the members of the KCRCC are elected by you, one from each of our 73 precincts. KCRCC members represent an accurate cross section of our county and they better understand what our citizens want in a candidate. The KCRCC also conducts professional polling to help understand your most important issues. Your KCRCC Precinct Committeemen knock on thousands of doors in their precincts to distribute information and hear directly from you what is important to you.
NIR members are a self-selected club that doesn’t even try to interview all the candidates.
NIR wants to brainwash you into thinking they are the true Republicans and yet the candidates they endorse are the same candidates endorsed by Democrats. Members of NIR leadership have already come out for Nikki Haley, the candidate openly supported by Democrats who believe she will lose to Biden.
The KCRCC is working closely with the Idaho GOP to ensure that in Idaho all Republicans, but only Republicans, can participate in our Presidential Preference Caucus. Know that the KCRCC is working hard for you. Don’t be brainwashed into thinking otherwise.
It’s just common sense.
Wednesday January 31, 2024 Border
Jim Hollingsworth
January 31, 2024
Dear Friends,
I want to thank you for your prayers for me. It appears that I am gradually getting better. I have lost over 13 pounds, which appears to have been mostly water. My sores on my legs are finally starting to heal. I have had to spend a lot of time lying down with my legs elevated. Again, thanks for praying.
Here are a few articles for your consideration.
Thanks.
Jim Hollingsworth
Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. (1 Corinthians 12:27)
U.S. Constitution Amendment XXI, Section 1
The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
- Please see the attachment by Daniel Nebert.
- Please see the attachment by Governor Abbot of Texas concerning border policy.
- Please see the attachment by Brent Regan “Are you brainwashed?”
- Please see the attachment by Brent Regan “Republican Party and Crazy Critics”.
- Please see the attachment by Brent Regan “Presidential Caucus Fact Check”
- Texas Defies Fed at Border What will the fed do? Good question.
- Presidential Primary Schedule 2024: Full Calendar, Key Dates (usatoday.com) Here is the list of coming elections and dates, some already past.
- Ford brings back popular Bronco This is an internal combustion engine vehicle with several engine options.
- States standing with Texas on Border Crisis The Supreme Court has ruled that Texas must remove razor wire. Texas has clearly constitutional power to control the border, and many other states agree. If the Fed will not enforce the law, then the states will do so. (Article I, Section 10, Paragraph 4)
- Some Democrats Say Biden should take control of Texas National Guard Because of how Texas came into the Union, Texas also has its own military.
Texas Military Forces – Wikipedia
- Governor Doug Burgum a part in Trump administration? Present governor of North Dakota.
- German Tractor Farmer Protest Leaves Economy in Free Fall This is all so unnecessary since climate change is not a crisis. Will they starve themselves to meet a goal that is a scientific fraud?
- Greene: Arrest Hunter Biden Don’t hold your breath, but Hunter Biden will probably never spend a day in jail.
Wednesday January 31, 2024 Attachment CO2
Jim Hollingsworth
January 31, 2024
Dear Friends,
I want to thank you for your prayers for me. It appears that I am gradually getting better. I have lost over 13 pounds, which appears to have been mostly water. My sores on my legs are finally starting to heal. I have had to spend a lot of time lying down with my legs elevated. Again, thanks for praying.
Here are a few articles for your consideration.
Thanks.
Jim Hollingsworth
Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. (1 Corinthians 12:27)
U.S. Constitution Amendment XXI, Section 1
The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
- Please see the attachment by Daniel Nebert.
- Please see the attachment by Governor Abbot of Texas concerning border policy.
- Please see the attachment by Brent Regan “Are you brainwashed?”
- Please see the attachment by Brent Regan “Republican Party and Crazy Critics”.
- Please see the attachment by Brent Regan “Presidential Caucus Fact Check”
- Texas Defies Fed at Border What will the fed do? Good question.
- Presidential Primary Schedule 2024: Full Calendar, Key Dates (usatoday.com) Here is the list of coming elections and dates, some already past.
- Ford brings back popular Bronco This is an internal combustion engine vehicle with several engine options.
- States standing with Texas on Border Crisis The Supreme Court has ruled that Texas must remove razor wire. Texas has clearly constitutional power to control the border, and many other states agree. If the Fed will not enforce the law, then the states will do so. (Article I, Section 10, Paragraph 4)
- Some Democrats Say Biden should take control of Texas National Guard Because of how Texas came into the Union, Texas also has its own military.
Texas Military Forces – Wikipedia
- Governor Doug Burgum a part in Trump administration? Present governor of North Dakota.
- German Tractor Farmer Protest Leaves Economy in Free Fall This is all so unnecessary since climate change is not a crisis. Will they starve themselves to meet a goal that is a scientific fraud?
- Greene: Arrest Hunter Biden Don’t hold your breath, but Hunter Biden will probably never spend a day in jail.
Wednesday January 31, 2024 None Missing
Jim Hollingsworth
January 31, 2024
Dear Friends,
I want to thank you for your prayers for me. It appears that I am gradually getting better. I have lost over 13 pounds, which appears to have been mostly water. My sores on my legs are finally starting to heal. I have had to spend a lot of time lying down with my legs elevated. Again, thanks for praying.
Here are a few articles for your consideration.
Thanks.
Jim Hollingsworth
Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. (1 Corinthians 12:27)
U.S. Constitution Amendment XXI, Section 1
The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
- Please see the attachment by Daniel Nebert.
- Please see the attachment by Governor Abbot of Texas concerning border policy.
- Please see the attachment by Brent Regan “Are you brainwashed?”
- Please see the attachment by Brent Regan “Republican Party and Crazy Critics”.
- Please see the attachment by Brent Regan “Presidential Caucus Fact Check”
- Texas Defies Fed at Border What will the fed do? Good question.
- Presidential Primary Schedule 2024: Full Calendar, Key Dates (usatoday.com) Here is the list of coming elections and dates, some already past.
- Ford brings back popular Bronco This is an internal combustion engine vehicle with several engine options.
- States standing with Texas on Border Crisis The Supreme Court has ruled that Texas must remove razor wire. Texas has clearly constitutional power to control the border, and many other states agree. If the Fed will not enforce the law, then the states will do so. (Article I, Section 10, Paragraph 4)
- Some Democrats Say Biden should take control of Texas National Guard Because of how Texas came into the Union, Texas also has its own military.
Texas Military Forces – Wikipedia
- Governor Doug Burgum a part in Trump administration? Present governor of North Dakota.
- German Tractor Farmer Protest Leaves Economy in Free Fall This is all so unnecessary since climate change is not a crisis. Will they starve themselves to meet a goal that is a scientific fraud?
- Greene: Arrest Hunter Biden Don’t hold your breath, but Hunter Biden will probably never spend a day in jail.
Sunday January 21, 2024 None Missing
Jim Hollingsworth
January 21, 2024
Dear Friends,
A number of you have written to ask what happened to me, so I will try to give an answer.
During the night on January 9, I felt water on my right foot. Further investigation revealed about a cup of water on the mattress.
Later in the day I went to the doctor. I have two minor skin injuries, and they were not healing. My legs have been very swollen, and that is making it hard to heal. Also, a blister had formed and that was leaking the water I saw.
So the doctor raised my furosemide, which is a diuretic, to control the swelling. This caused my blood pressure to go way down, so he took me off one blood pressure medicine.
During all this I have gained weight (water?) and partly because of no exercise. I am now 15 lbs over weight.
The wounds are healing, but very slowly. The blister has gone down, but is still there. It is some painful to walk, and I have been doing a lot of resting, with feet elevated.
I probably will not do a regular mailing for some time. I am getting up an hour later; even the bed becomes painful after a time.
I hope to get back at it soon, but would appreciate your prayers for healing.
Thanks so much. Jim Hollingsworth
Wednesday January 10, 2024
Jim Hollingsworth
January 10, 2024
Dear Friends,
Here are a few articles for your consideration.
Thanks.
Jim Hollingsworth
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. (1 Corinthians 15:19)
U.S. Constitution Amendment XX, Section 6
This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.
- Tit for Tat, Republicans threaten to remove Biden from ballot: This is not a good plan. Why get down into the mud with the rest of them? Do what is right, no matter what they may do.
- Hundreds of flights canceled after door plug blowout in flight They say they have found the plug. But it appears that this item is not like a small dowel, but like a small door. All 737 Max are grounded.
- Masks Required at some Hospitals Everyone knows that masks don’t do anything, but who am I to say?
- Jan 6 Documentary.
J6 Special Collection | Open.ink 1:06 Hours
Tuesday January 9, 2024
Jim Hollingsworth
January 9, 2024
Dear Friends,
Here are a few articles for your consideration.
Thanks.
Jim Hollingsworth
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. (1 Corinthians 12:7)
U.S. Constitution Amendment XX, Section 5
Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.
Monday January 8, 2024
Hamas terrorism isn’t ‘self-defense’ against ‘occupiers’
CAIR leaders rant and indoctrinate. Hamas murders. Jew-hating mobs rage for genocide.
Paul Driessen
Council on American Islamic Relations Los Angeles executive director Hussam Ayloush recently defended Hamas’s barbaric slaughter of 1,200 Jewish, Thai, Filipino, Bedouin and other men, women and children. He claimed Israel is “an occupier” that “does not have the right to defend itself.” He condemned Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza and said only Palestinians have “a right of self-defense.”
His assertions reflect language in the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Hamas Charters. Israel is an “imperialist, colonialist, racist, anti-human,” even “fascist” “colonizer,” they declare. The “Zionist entity” “occupies” Palestinian lands and denies Palestinians their “right to return” to their homes. The charters call for the “liberation of Palestine” through “resistance,” “armed struggle” and “self-defense.”
Mobs of students, faculty and fellow travelers flaunt their ignorance of morality and historic and modern reality by echoing these claims, justifying the October 7 massacres, calling for a “global intifada” (violent uprising), and demanding the eradication of Israel and its non-Muslim inhabitants “from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.
You have to wonder: How does a group of people achieve permanent “refugee” or “colonized victim” status with a “right of return” that no others have ever had? What constitutes a “legitimate right” of “resistance” or “self-defense”?
Particularly across the Europe-Asia-Middle-East mega-continent, human history has been a saga of settlement, invasion, victory or defeat, continuation or disintegration, expansion or dispersion. Those who lost wars were annihilated, lost title to their land, accepted subservient status (dhimmi in Muslim countries), emigrated, melded into the victorious civilizations or otherwise adjusted.
Over their six-thousand-year history, including since arriving in “the Promised Land” that is now Israel over 3,600 years ago, Jews have played all these roles. They defeated the Amorites, Canaanites, Philistines and Jebusites, created the Kingdom of Israel, fell to Assyrians and Babylonians, lived under Persian and Greek rule, established the Hasmonean dynasty, and were slaughtered, enslaved and dispersed by the Romans in 70-133 AD (CE).
At no point, however, did they entirely disappear from the Promised Land. Indeed, Muhammed’s Muslim (imperialist, colonialist) empire hired Jews as administrators after the Arab army arrived in 636. Jewish fortunes ebbed and flowed under Christian, Mongol and 500-year Ottoman Turkish rule.
Anti-Semitism and pogroms brought Western European and Russian Jews to their ancestral land in the late 1800s. Theodore Herzl’s Zionism increased the purchase of agricultural and other land. Turkey’s loss to the Allies in WWI transferred ownership and control of the area from Ottoman Turks to Britain.
The Roman term Palestine had applied to the region for two millennia, but there was never a Palestinian state or empire. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries emerged as independent nations from British-French-Russian rule over the Ottoman Empire before, during and after WWII – but no Palestinian nation. Palestinian ancestors were always citizens or subjects of ruling empires.
Jewish immigration and land purchases from local and absentee Arab landlords increased significantly between the world wars. The Holocaust and end of World War II brought surging Jewish immigration … and more conflicts. Land ownership in the pre-1947 British Mandate area that is now Israel was roughly 15% Arab, 9% Jewish and 76% public/Mandate land.
In 1948, despite Arab states’ opposition, the United Nations made Israel nationhood a reality. Local Arabs and five Arab countries declared war on the fledgling state. Some 700,000 Arabs fled, emigrated or were persuaded to leave Israel “temporarily” under hollow promises of victory over the Zionists. After the ’48 war, some 850,000 Jews were displaced, banned or banished (Hamas charter language) from Muslim countries across North Africa through the Middle East to Afghanistan; most of them settled in Israel.
The 1967 and 1973 wars between Arab countries and Israel also ended in Israeli victory and expansion. Two intifadas (1987-1993 and 2000-2005) brought many deaths on both sides but no gains for Palestinians. The war Hamas began from Gaza has been far more destructive.
Wars have consequences – now and throughout history. Assertions in charters or speeches do not change that; nor do they convey an “inalienable right” of return, even under some imagined “basic principles of human rights and international law” (Hamas Charter, Article 12). If a new Palestinian nation is created and recognized, there will be a right to return to that new nation – but not to Israel.
Imagine former German-speaking inhabitants asserting a right of return to lands that are now France, Poland and Russia. Hindus and Muslims returning to their prior homes in India and Pakistan. Berbers and other conquered, colonized people reclaiming their villages and pastures across the Maghreb in North Africa. Spain regaining Gibraltar from Britain. Turkey regaining Greece, Spain or its other Ottoman territories. China surrendering control over Tibet, or Russia over Crimea.
Imagine descendants of Celts and other ancient peoples across Britain and Europe demanding redress and return because their ancestors were subjugated by the ancestors of today’s British, French, Italian, Hungarian, Balkan and other nations. Descendants of the Mongols demanding the return of eastern Europe. Or Israelis demanding the return of Jewish Banu Qurayza lands near Medina.
The history of colonizers and colonized nations is long, complicated and ill-suited for assertions in self-serving charters. Perhaps Hamas’s elimination as a military and political power in Gaza will clarify that. Perhaps it will finally resolve the matter of Palestinians still being “refugees” 75 years after the ’48 war.
Columbia University defines “colonization” as “a system of oppression based on invasion and control that results in institutionalized inequality between the colonizer and the colonized.” That certainly describes the fate of countless nations and peoples, including those conquered, colonized and forcibly converted by Muhammed and his caliphs. It applies to European countries, Lenin and Stalin, and Islamists today in Nigeria and Sudan. It does not apply to Gaza, which Israel left in 2005 and Hamas has ruled since 2007.
Hamas and its allies nevertheless assert that “armed struggle” is required to “liberate Palestine” from Israeli “occupiers” (PLO Charter, Art. 9) … families, schools and mosques have a “national duty” to raise individual Palestinians “in an Arab revolutionary manner” (PLO Art. 7) … and Palestinians have “a legitimate right” to use “all means and methods” to “resist the occupation” and meet the “demands of self-defense” (PLO Art. 18; Hamas Arts. 25 and 39).
For decades, Hamas terrorized Israelis by firing thousands of rockets at civilian targets, bombing buses, cafes and bar mitzvahs, and shooting or stabbing parents and children. To claim this was “resistance” or “self-defense” is patently absurd. The calculated, barbaric October 7 massacres crossed the line of what any nation would ever permit.
Hamas terrorists gunned down hundreds of unarmed concertgoers; gang-raped and mutilated scores of women; soaked people in gasoline and burned them alive; beheaded babies or roasted them alive in ovens; cut a pregnant woman open, murdered her baby and butchered her; wiped out entire families as they begged for mercy; kidnapped 240 more – and then hid behind, among and under Gazan citizens.
(If you can stomach viewing Hamas atrocities, go here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)
Gaza has smart, capable people, and miles of gorgeous Mediterranean coastline. It could be as magnificent and prosperous as the United Arab Emirates. Its people just need to reject Hamas, tear up the PLO and Hamas charters, install a proper government, and build a genuine future for their children.
Paul Driessen is author of books and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.
Sunday January 7, 2024 Attachment Driessen
Hamas terrorism isn’t ‘self-defense’ against ‘occupiers’
CAIR leaders rant and indoctrinate. Hamas murders. Jew-hating mobs rage for genocide.
Paul Driessen
Council on American Islamic Relations Los Angeles executive director Hussam Ayloush recently defended Hamas’s barbaric slaughter of 1,200 Jewish, Thai, Filipino, Bedouin and other men, women and children. He claimed Israel is “an occupier” that “does not have the right to defend itself.” He condemned Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza and said only Palestinians have “a right of self-defense.”
His assertions reflect language in the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Hamas Charters. Israel is an “imperialist, colonialist, racist, anti-human,” even “fascist” “colonizer,” they declare. The “Zionist entity” “occupies” Palestinian lands and denies Palestinians their “right to return” to their homes. The charters call for the “liberation of Palestine” through “resistance,” “armed struggle” and “self-defense.”
Mobs of students, faculty and fellow travelers flaunt their ignorance of morality and historic and modern reality by echoing these claims, justifying the October 7 massacres, calling for a “global intifada” (violent uprising), and demanding the eradication of Israel and its non-Muslim inhabitants “from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.
You have to wonder: How does a group of people achieve permanent “refugee” or “colonized victim” status with a “right of return” that no others have ever had? What constitutes a “legitimate right” of “resistance” or “self-defense”?
Particularly across the Europe-Asia-Middle-East mega-continent, human history has been a saga of settlement, invasion, victory or defeat, continuation or disintegration, expansion or dispersion. Those who lost wars were annihilated, lost title to their land, accepted subservient status (dhimmi in Muslim countries), emigrated, melded into the victorious civilizations or otherwise adjusted.
Over their six-thousand-year history, including since arriving in “the Promised Land” that is now Israel over 3,600 years ago, Jews have played all these roles. They defeated the Amorites, Canaanites, Philistines and Jebusites, created the Kingdom of Israel, fell to Assyrians and Babylonians, lived under Persian and Greek rule, established the Hasmonean dynasty, and were slaughtered, enslaved and dispersed by the Romans in 70-133 AD (CE).
At no point, however, did they entirely disappear from the Promised Land. Indeed, Muhammed’s Muslim (imperialist, colonialist) empire hired Jews as administrators after the Arab army arrived in 636. Jewish fortunes ebbed and flowed under Christian, Mongol and 500-year Ottoman Turkish rule.
Anti-Semitism and pogroms brought Western European and Russian Jews to their ancestral land in the late 1800s. Theodore Herzl’s Zionism increased the purchase of agricultural and other land. Turkey’s loss to the Allies in WWI transferred ownership and control of the area from Ottoman Turks to Britain.
The Roman term Palestine had applied to the region for two millennia, but there was never a Palestinian state or empire. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries emerged as independent nations from British-French-Russian rule over the Ottoman Empire before, during and after WWII – but no Palestinian nation. Palestinian ancestors were always citizens or subjects of ruling empires.
Jewish immigration and land purchases from local and absentee Arab landlords increased significantly between the world wars. The Holocaust and end of World War II brought surging Jewish immigration … and more conflicts. Land ownership in the pre-1947 British Mandate area that is now Israel was roughly 15% Arab, 9% Jewish and 76% public/Mandate land.
In 1948, despite Arab states’ opposition, the United Nations made Israel nationhood a reality. Local Arabs and five Arab countries declared war on the fledgling state. Some 700,000 Arabs fled, emigrated or were persuaded to leave Israel “temporarily” under hollow promises of victory over the Zionists. After the ’48 war, some 850,000 Jews were displaced, banned or banished (Hamas charter language) from Muslim countries across North Africa through the Middle East to Afghanistan; most of them settled in Israel.
The 1967 and 1973 wars between Arab countries and Israel also ended in Israeli victory and expansion. Two intifadas (1987-1993 and 2000-2005) brought many deaths on both sides but no gains for Palestinians. The war Hamas began from Gaza has been far more destructive.
Wars have consequences – now and throughout history. Assertions in charters or speeches do not change that; nor do they convey an “inalienable right” of return, even under some imagined “basic principles of human rights and international law” (Hamas Charter, Article 12). If a new Palestinian nation is created and recognized, there will be a right to return to that new nation – but not to Israel.
Imagine former German-speaking inhabitants asserting a right of return to lands that are now France, Poland and Russia. Hindus and Muslims returning to their prior homes in India and Pakistan. Berbers and other conquered, colonized people reclaiming their villages and pastures across the Maghreb in North Africa. Spain regaining Gibraltar from Britain. Turkey regaining Greece, Spain or its other Ottoman territories. China surrendering control over Tibet, or Russia over Crimea.
Imagine descendants of Celts and other ancient peoples across Britain and Europe demanding redress and return because their ancestors were subjugated by the ancestors of today’s British, French, Italian, Hungarian, Balkan and other nations. Descendants of the Mongols demanding the return of eastern Europe. Or Israelis demanding the return of Jewish Banu Qurayza lands near Medina.
The history of colonizers and colonized nations is long, complicated and ill-suited for assertions in self-serving charters. Perhaps Hamas’s elimination as a military and political power in Gaza will clarify that. Perhaps it will finally resolve the matter of Palestinians still being “refugees” 75 years after the ’48 war.
Columbia University defines “colonization” as “a system of oppression based on invasion and control that results in institutionalized inequality between the colonizer and the colonized.” That certainly describes the fate of countless nations and peoples, including those conquered, colonized and forcibly converted by Muhammed and his caliphs. It applies to European countries, Lenin and Stalin, and Islamists today in Nigeria and Sudan. It does not apply to Gaza, which Israel left in 2005 and Hamas has ruled since 2007.
Hamas and its allies nevertheless assert that “armed struggle” is required to “liberate Palestine” from Israeli “occupiers” (PLO Charter, Art. 9) … families, schools and mosques have a “national duty” to raise individual Palestinians “in an Arab revolutionary manner” (PLO Art. 7) … and Palestinians have “a legitimate right” to use “all means and methods” to “resist the occupation” and meet the “demands of self-defense” (PLO Art. 18; Hamas Arts. 25 and 39).
For decades, Hamas terrorized Israelis by firing thousands of rockets at civilian targets, bombing buses, cafes and bar mitzvahs, and shooting or stabbing parents and children. To claim this was “resistance” or “self-defense” is patently absurd. The calculated, barbaric October 7 massacres crossed the line of what any nation would ever permit.
Hamas terrorists gunned down hundreds of unarmed concertgoers; gang-raped and mutilated scores of women; soaked people in gasoline and burned them alive; beheaded babies or roasted them alive in ovens; cut a pregnant woman open, murdered her baby and butchered her; wiped out entire families as they begged for mercy; kidnapped 240 more – and then hid behind, among and under Gazan citizens.
(If you can stomach viewing Hamas atrocities, go here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)
Gaza has smart, capable people, and miles of gorgeous Mediterranean coastline. It could be as magnificent and prosperous as the United Arab Emirates. Its people just need to reject Hamas, tear up the PLO and Hamas charters, install a proper government, and build a genuine future for their children.
Paul Driessen is author of books and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.