A Modest Proposal for Peace in the Holy Land

Just a couple of Ideas - to change the dialog in Israel / Palestine. Both "sides" - who are genetically almost identical - must 'give' a little. Let go of the attachment to banners & titles...

רק כמה רעיונות - כדי לשנות את תיבת הדו-שיח. "הצדדים"
- מי זהים גנטית כמעט - חייב 'לתת' קצת. . עזוב את הקובץ המצורף באנרים * כותרות...

For if, as the “Palestinians” say, their “Ancestors have been in the Land from Time Immemorial” – then they ought to be able to agree that they are “authentic Judeans.” All that is needed is a little Education, a few Lessons in History, and a little raising of consciousness. Problem Solved. “We are all Judeans Now.”

כי אם, כפי שנקרא "הפלסטינים" אומר, שלהם "אבות יש כבר ב- ארץ מן ומתמיד" – אז הם אמורים להגיע יכולים להסכים כי הם "העבריים אותנטי". כל מה שצריך הוא קצת חינוך, כמה שיעורים בהיסטוריה, קצת על ידי העלאת התודעה. – הבעיה נפתרה. "אנחנו נמצאים כעת העבריים".

In a similar manner, the so-called “Israelis” are suffering from a false label & a false Identity. The Ten Tribes of Israel went missing. Thus the so-called “Israelis” are not, properly “Israelis.” They are “Judeans” who, after eighteen hundred years have returned to the Land of the prophets and forefathers.

“Judea” was the last name of the Holy Land prior to the Romans mislabeling the Province “Palestine” in approximately 136, A.D./C.E.

באופן דומה, שנקרא "הישראלים" סובלים תווית שקר * זהות בדויה. עשרת שבטי ישראל הלכו לאיבוד. ובכך כביכול "" שהישראלים לא, כראוי "ישראלים". הם "העבריים", לאחר ושמונה מאות שנה חזרו לארץ של נביאים ושל האבות.

"יהודה" היה שם המשפחה של ארץ הקודש לפני הרומאים המטעות המחוז "פלסטין" כ 136, A.D./C.E.

Children of Abraham! Let Go of your strife of Words and Banners! Let go of your Attachment to Labels and Isms! Unite as One People under One Banner, with Liberty and Justice for All! Realize that You are All “Judeans.”

ילדיו של אברהם! עזוב את אישתו של מילים, באנרים! עזוב את הלב Isms ותוויות! מתאחדים בתור אחד האנשים באנר אחד, עם חירות וצדק לכל! להבין שאתה כל "העבריים."

What is needed is not Jared’s “Peace Plan” but a grassroots Convention, to be held in Haifa, in a Large Auditorium, open to the Public where twenty-four delegates can be elected to meet and work out the details for a Joint Constitution.

מה שדרוש הוא לא של ג'ארד "תוכנית השלום" אבל להסכם האמנה, שיתקיים בחיפה, באולם גדול, פתוח לציבור איפה עשרים וארבע נציגים יכולים להיבחר להיפגש ולעבוד את הפרטים על חוקה משותפת.

Twelve so-called “Israelis” and twelve so-called “Palestinians” should be elected, under “Robert’s Rules of Order” to meet in a closed convocation where the twenty-four can work out the terms of a Constitution and Bill of Rights – One Schedule of Laws for Everyone on both sides of the Green Line.

12 כביכול "ישראלים", 12 כביכול "פלסטינים" צריכות להיבחר, תחת "כללים של רוברט מסדר" לפגוש ולאולם סגורה איפה עשרים-וארבע לסדר את התנאים של החוקה ואת מגילת הזכויות – לוח זמנים אחד של הלכות לכולם על צידי
הקו הירוק.

So get with it ! Someone Should find the Hall in Haifa…

And find a mansion on Mount Carmel (in which the 24 delegates should be sequestered for a period of two weeks.)

כך מקבל עם זה! מישהו צריך למצוא את האולם בחיפה...

ולמצוא בית אחוזה על הר הכרמל (שבו הצירים 24 צריך להיות בבידוד לתקופה של שבועיים.)

Then, Organize, Print up posters & flyers, And just Do It !

Pre-empt Bibi, Trump & Jared!!

אז, ארגן, הדפסה על פוסטרים * עלונים, רק לעשות את זה!

מראש empt ביבי, טראמפ * ג'ארד!!

“If the People Lead, the
‘leaders’ Must Follow”

"האנשים עופרת, 'מנהיגי' עליך לפעול"

Haifa is the Place for the Open Convention; Mount Carmel is the Place for the “Constitutional Convocation.” It must begin in Haifa – if it is to happen at all.

חיפה היא המקום לקראת הועידה פתוח; הר הכרמל הוא המקום עבור "ולאולם החוקתית"

Just a couple of Ideas - to change the dialog in Israel / Palestine. Both "sides" - who are genetically so close - must give a little. Let go of the attachment to banners & titles...

فقط بضع أفكار-لتغيير مربع الحوار. 'الطرفين'--الذين هم متطابقة وراثيا تقريبا--يجب أن 'منح' قليلاً. ترك المرفق على لافتات * العناوين

For if, as the “Palestinians” say, their “Ancestors have been in the Land from Time Immemorial” – then they ought to be able to agree that they are “authentic Judeans.” All that is needed is a little Education, a few Lessons in History, and a little raising of Consciousness. Problem Solved. “We are all Judeans Now.”

إذا، كما يقول ما يسمى "الفلسطينيين"، على "الأجداد قد تم في الأرض من زمن سحيق" – ثم أنها ينبغي أن تكون قادرة على الاتفاق الذي هم "Judeans أصيلة." كل ما هو مطلوب هو التعليم قليلاً، بضعة دروس في التاريخ، وجمع القليل من الوعي.-"حل المشكلة". "ونحن جميع Judeans الآن"

In a similar manner, the so-called “Israelis” are suffering from a false label & a false Identity. The Ten Tribes of Israel went missing. Thus they are not, properly “Israelis.” They are “Judeans” who, after eighteen hundred years have returned to the Land of the prophets and forefathers.


“Judea” was the last name of the Holy Land prior to the Romans mislabeling the Province “Palestine” in approximately 136, A.D./C.E.

بطريقة مماثلة، يعاني ما يسمى "الإسرائيليين" من تسمية خاطئة * هوية مزورة. أن "قبائل إسرائيل عشرة" في عداد المفقودين. وبالتالي ما يسمى "الإسرائيليين" لا بشكل صحيح "الإسرائيليين". وهي "Judeans" الذين، بعد ثمانية عشر قرنا عادوا إلى أرض الأنبياء والأجداد.

وكان "يهودا" الاسم الأخير للأراضي المقدسة قبل الرومان بكتيريا المقاطعة "فلسطين" في حوالي 136، A.D./C.E.

Children of Abraham! Let Go of your strife of Words and Banners! Let go of your Attachment to Labels and Isms! Unite as One People under One Banner, with Liberty and Justice for All! Realize that You are All “Judeans.”

أبناء إبراهيم! ترك الصراع الخاص بك من كلمات وشعارات! ترك تمسككم بالتسميات والمذاهب! توحيد كشعب واحد واحد تحت رأيه، مع الحرية والعدالة للجميع! تدرك أنك جميع "Judeans."

What is needed is not Jared’s “Peace Plan” but a grassroots Convention, to be held in Haifa, in a Large Auditorium, open to the Public where twenty-four delegates can be elected to meet and work out the details for a Joint Constitution.

ما هو مطلوب ليس جاريد "خطة سلام" ولكن شعبية الاتفاقية، المزمع عقده في حيفا، في "قاعة كبيرة"، مفتوحة للجمهور حيث يمكن انتخاب أربعة وعشرين مندوبا للالتقاء والعمل على التفاصيل لوضع "دستور مشترك".

Twelve so-called “Israelis” and twelve so-called “Palestinians” should be elected, under “Robert’s Rules of Order” to meet in a closed convocation where the twenty-four can work out the terms of a Constitution and Bill of Rights – One Schedule of Laws for Everyone on both sides of the Green Line.

ينبغي انتخاب اثني عشر ما يسمى "الإسرائيليين" واثنا عشر ما يسمى "الفلسطينيين"، تحت '' قواعد لروبرت ترتيب '' لتلبية بدعوة مغلقة حيث يمكن العمل أربعة وعشرين من أحكام الدستور وقانون الحقوق – "جدول واحد من القوانين" للجميع على كلا الجانبين من "الخط الأخضر".

So get with it ! Someone Should find the Hall in Haifa…


…And find a mansion on Mount Carmel (in which the 24 delegates should be sequestered for a period of two weeks.)

حتى تحصل على ذلك! شخص ما يجب أن تجد القاعة في حيفا...


والعثور على شقة في جبل الكرمل (التي ينبغي أن يعزل 24 مندوبا لمدة أسبوعين.)

Then, Organize, Print up posters & flyers, And just Do It !

Pre-empt Bibi, Trump & Jared!!

ذلك الحين، تنظيم وطباعة ملصقات * النشرات الإعلانية، ومجرد "القيام بذلك"!


استباق بيبي، ترامب * جاريد!!

“If the People Lead, the
‘leaders’ Must Follow”

"إذا كان يقود الناس،' زعماء 'يجب أن تتبع"

Haifa is the Place for the Open Convention; Mount Carmel is the Place for the “Constitutional Convention.” It must begin in Haifa – if it is to happen at all.

حيفا هي المكان المناسب "الاتفاقية مفتوحة"؛ جبل الكرمل هو المكان المناسب لعقد "الدستورية". أنها يجب أن تبدأ في حيفا – إذا أريد له أن يحدث على الإطلاق.

Here is grounds for a little Hope:


[CLICK ON IT...]


https://www.facebook.com/WomenWagePeace/videos/10156405317972235/?id=100034707103880

The Holy Land is (approximately) the Size of Wales

I have a facebook friend - one Sidney Skolnick, an old Brooklyn boy who lives in Texas - who was also an 'old' facebook friend from before{before the time I was quarantined for thirty-nine months of banishment from facebook.} In the process of chatting with him about the prospects of Jared Kusner's "Peace Plan" I asked him what he thought of it.

To my surprise, he said "I wrote it."

At present, however, he has no Idea just how much of his original plan - co-written with Akiva Mitzmacher of Dix Hills, New York - will be in the final draft of the "Peace Plan" of Jared Kushner. On account of Netanyahu not being able to form a cabinet, and new elections being scheduled in Israel in the Fall, the unveiling of whole thing has been postponed.

So I asked Sidney, I did, whether I could leak his "PLAN" on the Internet, and he told me, "Go for it - remember, it's a real estate deal and the Federation mandate is the new life for the people." And, "The 2 key docs are the Peace Agreement and the Federation Charter."

So there you have it. Click on the Attachment, if you are interested in getting a preview of the "original" document...

My own "Peace Plan" (@ the top of this thread) takes a more "grass roots" approach. What I suggest is to begin with a Town Hall Meeting in Haifa, the City in Israel where everybody gets along, and everyone has friends in the ‘other’ category.

This Town Hall meeting should be assembled with the intention of electing twenty-four delegates – who would comprise an accurate demographic spread of all the ethnic varieties which co-exist in the Holy Land – and then sequestering these twenty-four for a period of two weeks in a mansion on Mount Carmel, to work it all out.

Formerly, I wrote that the end product should be a “Constitution and a Bill of Rights.” But perhaps that is too simplistic, and ‘American’ a notion.

The Document that could emerge from this Convocation might be called a “Compact” – or “Covenant” among the inhabitants of the Holy Land, to “Live together in Peace” and to Share the Land.

Hopefully, in the two weeks of confinement, the delegates could come to a Consensus and produce something noteworthy and historically significant, on the order of the Constitution of the United States of America.

After that, steps should be made to promote the “Covenant” and to hold a plebiscite –on both sides of the Green Line – in order to make it become the “Law of the Land.”

I have next to no Idea of what to put in the Document that becomes the State Charter for Israel/Palestine. In truth, it is none of my business.

That, Ideally, should be the work of the assembled “delegates” – who should all be duly elected according to the procedure in “Robert’s Rules of Order” in the Town Hall Meeting in Haifa. This would be “participatory democracy” in Action - from the grass roots up.

What I know about israel/Palestine is that until the right of return extends to recent herstory and all residents get a vote, there will be war. The idea of a Jewish state is worse than racism, or many other isms I could name, one of the foundations of our flawed country is separation from religion. Why do we support this for Jews?

rossmen wrote:

"What I know about israel/Palestine is that until the right of return extends to recent herstory and all residents get a vote, there will be war. The idea of a Jewish state is worse than racism, or many other isms I could name, one of the foundations of our flawed country is separation from religion. Why do we support this for Jews?"


I agree with your first sentence, Ross, though I will quibble about the rest. The "Ideal" solution for Israel/Palestine should entail the creation of a Constitution & a Bill of Rights for ALL - and the Right of Return for the descendants of those {Palestinians}who left in 1948.

What you do not know about Israel is that the situation is tremendously complex - exceedingly so. Israel is a multi-party system - unlike the duopolies that exist in America and Britain. No government can come to power that is not a coalition. Every potential administration must first form a coalition, and once elected, put together a cabinet which includes members of the Datim - the 'religious parties.'

In point of fact, the Datim exercise the balance of power. And, although the Orthodox are split on the issue of Zionism, the largest faction of them are adamant about Israel being a "Jewish State." This tendency began in 1920, when Sir Herbert Samuel, the newly appointed "high commissioner" {of the British Mandate over Palestine} in turn appointed Rav Avraham Kook to be the Chief Rabbi in Jerusalem.

After the Six Day War in 1967, some of the remaining Orthodox who had been hostile to Zionism, seeing an Act of God in the victory, came over to the side of the gung ho. Today, some holdouts among the Orthodox still remain, like the Neturei Karta, who would agree with you that "Zionism is racism."

As to your assertion "the Idea of a Jewish state is worse than racism" I can not agree. For over eighteen centuries - since the Romans deported the bulk of the Judeans at the end of the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135, A.D./C.E., most of the "Jews" on the planet were in Exile, and did not have a country, or a state of their own. To repeat the platitude that they were an 'oppressed people' does not do justice to the complexity & the collective trauma of this history.

The thing that is undeniably true is that, since 1948 the so-called "Palestinians" have been oppressed by the Israelis. - Not to the degree that the Nazis afflicted the Jews of Europe, but still, they have been oppressed. This is a function of the phenomenon of transference.

There are signs of hope, however, that a thaw has begun in the Israeli attitude towards their own next-of-kin. For, since the advances that have been made in genetic science since the turn of this century, it has become quite clear that the two peoples are very close indeed.

The Federation Movement ! Check it Out !


http://www.federation.org.il/index.php/en/

Visualize a Dove, nesting in the Bowl formed by the Two Olive Branches

The View from the Mayacamas…

As I see it : The main thing I can contribute or "bring to the table" in Israeli / Palestinian politics is to point out a simple Solution & a Way out of the current quandary / impasse / muddle //:

Historically, this Sort of Gambit is called "Re- Alignment"...

1:>: The “Peace Camp” (i.e., Gush Shalom & fellow travelers) need to totally get off of the “Oslo / Two State Solution” treadmill. Just cut it loose, kids. It is like whipping a dead horse.

2:>: The “Israeli Left” – most of whom fervently desire “Peace” – should communicate with, plan & strategize with Everyone on both sides of the Green Line who wants there to be 'One State’ - a Just & Equitable Solution – and an end to the ongoing fratricidal War of Attrition that has been gong on in so-called “Palestine” since the 1920’s.

3:>: What is needed is a working Synthesis of the position of the Settlers with the position of the Peaceniks. The Settlers should be willing to allow the Palestinians a place at the Table, and the Peaceniks should see the absurdity of making the Settlers pack up and leave Judea & Samaria.

4:> Israel needs the Golan Heights, the River Jordan and the Dead Sea as the eastern boundary - for the simple and very manifestly logical Reason that no other borders are defensible in a hostile neighborhood.

5:>: These two camps {i.e., Settlers & Peaceniks} need to move towards a synthesis & understanding of each other and the reasonableness of the positions of the other camp. For, truth be told, each side has its points. An Alliance of these two camps has the Potential to change the current impasse & logjam in Israeli Politics.

6:>: The Settlers should agree to grant full Civil Rights & "Reasonable Right of Return" to members of the Palestinian Diaspora who wish to Return to the Holy Land.

7:>: The terms of accepting applicants from the “Palestinian Diaspora” who wish to be admitted as Citizens into the “Common-wealth of Judea” should be a Loyalty Oath to “Live Together in Peace with the "Jews" ! " {administered with a lie detector test.}

Palestinians in the Diaspora who pass the "Loyalty & Vow of Peace Oath" {& the lie-detector test} should be allowed to make Aliyah.

8:>: There needs to be a Covenant of Peace between Both Peoples, with a Common Bill of Rights, a Joint Capital in Jerusalem, a Joint Statehouse, & two Mayors in Jerusalem, with adjacent offices and a padded room for group therapy. Turn the Knesset & the Supreme Court into museums. Celebrate:::

“Next Year in Jerusalem.”

:earth:

And that’s the View from the Mayacamas…

A Propaganda film put out by the Israeli hawks in which this Peacenik ( i ) can find no fault in the argument thereof. One more reason for the "One State Solution."

Israel needs the Golan Heights, the River Jordan and the Dead Sea as the eastern boundary...

- For the simple and very manifestly logical Reason that no other borders are defensible in a hostile neighborhood.

Click on the Link....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2hZ6SlSqq0

A Movement that is gaining traction in the Holy Land: Federation of Israel-Palestine

An Essay in Search of a Photograph
of the late Rivka Sigal

I first learned about the details of the intimate blood-kinship of the so-called "Jewish" people and the so-called "Palestinian" people from the late Rivka Sigal, whom I met at the beginning of the First Gulf War, in late January of 1991, in Berkeley California. I was passing out a two-sided anti-war broadside I had published: the "“ECONOMIC FACT-SHEET" / “New World Order” = “New Age” Global Fascism"

It was a chilly evening around eight o’clock. It was Winter on the West Coast, and I was standing at the Street entrance of the Berkeley Bart Station at Shattuck Avenue & Center Street, offering my tract, free of charge to all the people coming and going from the underground BART Station.

Rivka Sigal was one of the ones departing from BART that evening, having come back from some political event in the "City" -San Francisco. Rivka, as I recall, was bundled up in an overcoat with a fur lining, and was wearing a round Russian fur (Bear) cap. She accepted one of my "ECONOMIC FACT-SHEET" pamphlets, took a serious glance at it, and then said, with a wry smile, “We must talk.”

She gave me her card, and then scurried off, like the Rabbit that Alice met at the very beginning of her journey down the Rabbit-hole. She had another political meeting to attend that night, and could not tarry.

That was how I met one of the most fascinating, knowledgeable, and yet, seriously deranged individuals I have ever yet met in my "little life." She was one of the wheels of the Old Left in Berkeley.

Rivka Sigal was born in Vienna in 1928, and emigrated, with her father, mother and older brother, to British Mandate "Palestine" in 1938. They left Vienna with only their suitcases in hand, just four days before the Anschluss, when the Nazis rolled in. They made it down to "Palestine" and made Aliyah before the New (severely restricted) Quotas for the 'Admission of Jews' into "Palestine" were enforced after the "White Paper" of 1939.

Rivka grew up in British Mandate “Palestine” from the age of ten. At an early age she learned to hate the Brits. At the age of eighteen, in 1946, she sat under Martin Buber and attended his classes at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. Also, in 1946, Rivka Sigal became a Commissioned Officer in the Palmach, and later the same year, resigned her Commission, and became a member of the revolutionary underground - the "Stern Group" - LeHI.

In the first place, let me introdce you to Avraham Stern, aka, "Ya-ir"- the founder and first leader of "LeHI" - until his murder by British Police in Tel Aviv in February of 1942. Avraham Stern was a Polish Jew, who, while growing up in Poland, became a member of Betar, the Revisionist Zionist formation founded & led by Vladimir Jabotinsky.

In Palestine, in 1940, it was Avraham Stern’s contention that the Jews of the Yishuv had to become revolutionaries and ‘take up the gun’ in order to liberate Palestine from British Occupation, since the British, beginning to implement the protocols of the "White Paper of 1939" were busy preventing Palestine from becoming a safe haven for the Jews of Europe during the World War that had just started. Avraham Stern declared War on Great Britain, and went underground.

It was from Rivka Sigal that I first learned the very important piece of information that the Stern Group were a 'left’ deviation out of Betar & the Irgun. She also told me that all of the members of LeHI attended Martin Buber’s lectures at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, and that they all considered him to be a genuine Tzadik; an authentically great man, and themselves, his disciples.

=Again= -for it bears emphasis & repetition- Rivka Sigal told me that all of the Sternists were disciples of Martin Buber, and that they all sat under Buber at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus.

She said that their break with Buber over the issue of armed resistance versus non-violence was momentous & highly emotional. The Sternists deeply loved Buber, and respected his adherence to pacifism. They reverred him as their Teacher; but they felt compelled by circumstances & the extremity of the hour to take up the gun in order to drive the Brits out.

-That the Jews of Europe could have a safe haven in Eretz Israel where they could escape the Nazi dragnet.

Rivka told me this: That it is true that Avraham Stern was a member of Betar in Poland and also attended the Fascist Naval Academy at Citivechia in Italy before he came to Palestine, but that when he arrived in Palestine, he was very taken with the Moshav movement and he himself moved into a more Socialist position - without joining the Histadruth.

Consequently, Avraham Stern sought to move the Irgun towards a more ‘socialist’ direction. This tendency in his mind -to drift towards revolution- preceded and precipitated his split with Begin after the death of Vladimir Jabotinsky.

The predominant, current, Zionist party line about the “Stern Gang” is that they were "even more extreme than the Irgun.” -Implying that they were 'even further to the right' than the Irgun. In point of fact – and, this despite the dumb move of the Ankara overture- they were the most radical revolutionary “left" faction of the Zionist left, among the armed opponents of Britain in Palestine, from the period between 1940, through 1948.

It was in Martin Buber’s classroom at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus that Rivka Sigal first met the members of LeHI, in 1945 or 1946. They would come up from the underground and surface in Buber’s classroom because it was a safe haven for them in Jerusalem, and also a forum to engage in debates with Buber on the issue of armed resistance versus pacifism. Also, a place for recruiting other disciples of Buber into their Cause: the Armed ouster of the Brits from Palestine.

In relating all of this to me, the main thing – the first thing - that Rivka spoke about, was Martin Buber’s identification of the “Root Stock” of the “Palestinian People” as the “Remnant of the Tribe of Judah.” That was paramount to her. In short, Buber's Equation was : "Palestinian Genetic Root Stock" = "Remnant of the Tribe of Judah."

Rivka left Israel with her husband in 1950. In 1991, she was certain that the prevailing power of the Likudniks in Israel since Menachem Begin came to power in 1977, had either burned outright - or else buried Buber’s Equation deep in the Archives. -On this – for her – most salient point.

In 1946, Rivka did not go off and join LeHi directly after meeting members of the Stern group in Buber’s classroom at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. First, she became a Commissioned Officer in the Palmach.

There is documented evidence of this, I am sure, in Israel. Also, the photograph which made it to the front page of the “Palestine Post” {the former name of the “Jerusalem Post”) in the Spring of 1946. Under the headline, “Keeping Watch on the Negev” there is a picture of Rivka, at age eighteen, in her Palmach Uniform, with her sten gun, doing her duty as a sentry at a guard post on the Negev/Sinai border.

It was during a period in 1946 when the Palmach experienced a shortage of rifles, and the higher-ups in the Palmach took away her sten gun (because she was the only girl in the platoon) to give it to a male recruit, that Rivka, disgusted, resigned her commission in the Palmach and hitch-hiked down to Tel Aviv -where she showed up at the door of her uncle’s apartment and said, “Put me in touch with LeHI.”

She had already met many of the Sternists at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, in Martin Buber’s classroom. That was the very important testimony that she repeated over & over throughout her subsequent life. In her case, feminism & revolutionary zeal had trumped èsprit de côrps.

Somewhere in Israel there is still a photograph of the late Rivka Sigal, on the front cover of “The Palestine Post” from 1946, with the caption, “Keeping Watch on the Negev” dating from the time she was a Commissioned Officer in the Palmach.

Rivka told me repeatedly that the Sternists broke with Buber -their mentor- on the Issue of Pacifism. They felt, given the extraordinary political situation after the Nazi Occupation of Poland – and the self-evident writing on the wall concerning the immanent holocaust - that it was their duty to ‘take up the gun’ to liberate Palestine from British Occupation.

-The Brits, in the wake of their infamous “White Paper on Palestine” of 1939, were avidly, militantly -& wickedly- preventing the “Palestine” that they themselves coveted from becoming a safe haven for the critically endangered Jews of Europe.

She told me again and again that the Sternists wanted there to be “One State” with full Civil Rights for the Indigenous Arabs – as did Buber. -That they took this item very seriously, and that there were Palestinians also, amongst the members of LeHI, ardently fighting for the same Cause – to drive the “Brits Out.”

She was still a close friend with one of those men - a Palestinian who lived in the Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco. At one point she wanted me to meet that individual, but unfortunately, that meeting never came off.

Rivka used to get on Talk Radio in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 80's and 90's, on the radio programs of Michael Krasny & 'late night' Ray Taliafaro, & cry out, like Passionaria, "The Palestinians are the Vine of my Blood !"

All of the Palestinians who ran {& to this day run) package stores in Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco loved her, and revere her memory. She was a Character. She was also a dangerous person to know. Rivka Sigal, as a “witness to history” is definitely ‘problematic’ from the historian’s standpoint. I regret – immensely - that I did not interview her on tape, and draw her out on a number of points.

Rivka told me that both Itzak Shamir and Guela Cohen were “plants” from Begin in the midst of LeHI – and that Shamir left the group as soon as the fighting was over at the end of 1948, and went back to Begin. She said that Itzak Shamir, as he was leaving, told the Sternists who had survived - herself included, “We will bury you in the Knesset.”

This aspect of Rivka's testimony is a most curious byte of information, because History records that Itzak Shamir was the one who re-organized the Sternists after Avraham Stern was killed by the Brits in 1942 in an apartment in Tel Aviv.

The Irgun and the Sternists had differing political Agendas. They colluded during the Revolt & War for Independence, and both were revolutionary tendencies in the underground (one right-wing & one left-wing). -But after the dust settled at the end of ’48, their days of blocking together and “joint actions” were quite over.

Uri Avnery, in his book, “Israel Without Zionism” relates how, as a teenager in the Irgun, he and his young Irgun companions were disoriented and confused for over a year after Stern led his contingent out of the Organization.

Menachem Begin emerges from the assembled pieces of this puzzle as a very clever cookie. It is clear that he was the one who detailed Shamir, after the assassination of Avraham Stern by the British, to go in and reassemble the alienated “left-deviation” revolutionaries that Stern had gathered to himself. This gambit {an old one at that) is known as “organizing the opposition.”

Itzak Shamir - as Menachem Begin's "plant" in the Stern Group - & as the leader of the Sternists after the murder of Avraham Stern, coordinated the details of every action with Begin.

Rivka was present at Deir Yassin on the night that the "massacre" happened, two kilometers away, manning a 'checkpoint' with her sten gun. She did not apologize about it, and explained it in this way: the Irgun & LeHI would ‘bloc’ to do various actions in concert, even though their long-term agendas were very different:

'Deir Yassin was a village situated only two hundred yards from the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem {the old Joppa Road} and by April of 1948, because of the civil war, the situation in the Jewish districts of Jerusalem had deteriorated to the point that the Jews of Jerusalem were dying of hunger and thirst.'

'Food and water was being trucked up the Joppa road from Tel Aviv, but every night, Arab ‘Salvation Army’ fighters -who were safe-housed in Deir Yassin- would come out by night and shoot up the trucks, first targeting the tires and then throwing grenades & Molotov cocktails to finish off the trucks & the drivers.'

-Meanwhile, the Jews in the Jewish districts in the Old City and the New city of Jerusalem were starving and dying of thirst. "We had to clear the village of Deir Yassin in order to relieve the Seige of Jerusalem," she told me. "It was War, and hundreds of Jews trapped in the City of Jerusalem stood in danger of dying of hunger and thirst."

Rivka, as a 'girl' in the Stern Gang, was not given a prominent role in the actual 'action' that night. Instead, she was detailed to man a 'checkpoint' two miles away, with her sten gun - and, as I have said - she justified the "action" to me as a military necessity.

All the same, Rivka loved the Palestinian people. Even today, if you go to the San Francisco Bay Area, talk to any Palestinian running a neighborhood package / liquor store, & ask the proprietor if he remembers Rivka Sigal? They will tell you that they loved her. She was a tireless advocate for Justice for the Palestinians and a perennial advocate for the old Buberite model for the One State Solution.

Nevertheless, Rivka justified the ‘action’ at Deir Yassin. By April of 1948, it was War. The ‘bloc’ of Irgun & LeHI were not engaged in random terrorism; they were relieving the siege of the Jews in Jerusalem.

Jews were dying of starvation and thirst, and the trucks bringing in food and water were not getting through on account of the “Arab Salvation Army” fighters who were safe-housed in the village of Deir Yassin.

I am glad that I met Rivka, because she was a teacher - and she taught me a great deal. -Buber’s take on the Palestinians being the main event... And yet, I must add that she was a very difficult person to know. She was not simply a ‘problem yenta.’ She was also nuts. She was a terrible packrat, and profoundly disorganized.

She had a marvelous ability to alienate people – other Jews, in particular. In the end, she wound up gassing me with an insecticide bomb, in the course of my doing some plumbing for her in the upstairs bathroom of her house on Bancroft. That was a perfect expression of her holocaust-trauma." Good old, all-purpose Zyklon-B. "..Traumatised & traumatizing..."

-Those ^^ were the words that one tefillimed Rabbinical student @ the Jewish Community Center on Nineteenth Avenue in the Clement District once muttered to me, as he watched the amazing spectacle of Rivka Sigal interacting with one old local veteran of Auschwitz, who bare his arm to show the tattoo with the number in his frenzied response to Rivka's sharp cry for "Justice for the Palestinians." She was an old hand at stirring up the old Jews. What else can you expect from a gal who was an experienced "terrorist" while she was yet in her teens - and in a uniform, no less?

She had, at the age of sixty-three, the remnants of a brilliant mind. She had known, on a personal, first name basis, everyone who was anyone in all of the events surrounding the Israeli War for Independence.

Rivka was very opinionated about many of the ‘great men’ of Zionism. She loathed the ‘father of his country’ David ben Gurion, and called him a physical “coward” and also, “corrupt” - because he did not sound the tocsins about the Shoah during World War II, while it was happening.

Menachem Begin at least, she acknowledged, had sounded the tocsins during the Holocaust, and she also granted that he was “brave.” Nevertheless, she loathed his politics and ultimate agenda. Rivka Sigal considered the Likud to be the nadir of Zionism -essentially, the ‘enemy within.'

It would be interesting, were she still alive and of a sound mind, to hear about her take on the book, “Sabatai Zevi, Labor Zionism & the Holocaust” by the late Barry Chamish. She would probably have agreed with much of the contents, for she considered David ben Gurion and the Histadruth to be "toadies for the Brits."

In the process of fact-checking all the details of Rivka's story, I read a lot of books. Most of the accounts about the "Stern Gang" {the pejorative term that the Brits called them) repeat the same tripe about how they were "even more extreme than the Irgun..."

No one seems to have the foggiest notion that LeHI were disciples of Martin Buber. It is never, ever, mentioned. So the definitive book about LeHI has not been written. I doubt that it ever will be written. It is simply not in the interests of either the Labor Zionists nor the Likudniks to let it out of the bag into which it has been stuffed...

The only authoritative history of Zionism that I know of that accurately describes the ‘left-wing tendency’ aspects of LeHI is the book “A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel” by Walter Laqueur.

I regret Now, deeply that I did not interview Rivka Sigal with a tape recorder. But I am not misrepresenting what she said – to me and to a multitude of others - one iota. You can’t make this stuff up, and no writer of fiction could invent someone like Rivka Sigal. She was both a died-in-the-wool disciple of Martin Buber, and ALSO an unreconstructed member of the Stern Gang.

As I have said, Rivka Sigal was “nuts.” By the time when I met her, during the First Gulf War, in early 1991, she had become a terrible pack-rat. But she was not delusional. And I will, indeed I must, vouch for her credibility. I have no reason to disbelieve her statements about the Stern Group regarding their affinity for and their adherence to Martin Buber.

-And I will always be grateful to Rivka Sigal, who was the one who told me about Martin Buber’s take on the authentic Identity of the so-called “Palestinian People” – that they are descended from the 'Remnant' of the Judeans who were left in the Holy Land after the Bar Kokhba Revolt. She knew, in later years, that that was the most important item that she had ever heard in her entire life.

-And I know that it is one of the most important bits of information that I ever heard in my life.

It was from the late Milton Wolff, the last living leader of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain - who was in my mother’s writers group in Berkeley - that I learned that most (italics) of the Stern Gang died fighting in 1948 on the Samarian Front against the so-called “Arab Legion.” –In Reality, the "Arab Legion" was a British, Satrap, Colonial Army - armed by Britain and officered by British Army Officers.

Milt Wolff, a lifelong, card-carrying member of the Communist Party, USA, a man who survived the Battle of the Valley of Jarama fighting against the Fascists in Spain -and who, as a member of the O.S.S., parachuted into Italy in 1943, and slogged all the way up the Peninsula during the Allies’ Italian Campaign in World War II- was able to appreciate the bravery and the sacrifice of the brigades of LeHI at the Battle of Latrun.

Milt Wolff told me, in 1991: "There never were more than nine hundred members in LeHI – even at the beginning of the split, in 1940." And by the end of 1948, he said, there were only about three hundred Sternists who remained. “They really took it on the chin,” he told me.

Since the "Stern Gang" was more than decimated in the course of 1948, and there were only about three hundred of them left at the time of the cease-fire in the end of '48, the History of what they were about has been distorted.

But it is a fact that most of the Sternists who did not die in the front lines in the Battle of Latrun, when the “Arab Legion” - Britain's colonial Jordanian satrap army - was advancing on Tel Aviv, perished later, trying to drive the "Arab Legion" out of Samaria.

The Sternists, in their struggle unto death, took a revolutionary stance. They were against Imperialism – and Britain, under the cover of the “Arab Legion” of Jordan, was re-occupying the eastern portion of so-called “Palestine” after they had, with much pomp and circumstance, & most conspicuously, in many “NEWSREELS” packed up & departed by Ships, via the 'front door' - the ports of Haifa and Joppa.

I call upon the remnant of the Israeli Veterans of ’67 to testify: Is it not true, that when the I.D.F. liberated East Jerusalem in the Six Day War - that there still was a British -maintained GHQ there for the Administration of their portion of the Dominion of the so-called “West Bank” of Jordan?

As far as references in the present about LeHI: Walter Lacquer is one of the few historians who understands the nuances of their "left-deviation" from the Irgun. During the period of the Non-Aggression Pact at the beginning of World War II, the Sternists took a position that was similar to that of the Communist (Third) International during the same period – that the War was an “Imperialist War” and that British & German Imperialism -Both- were bad.

In the period during World War II after the German Invasion of Russia on June 21, 1941, the difference between the Sternists and the Third International was that the Sternists continued to maintain that the Brits were Imperialists & the Enemy, long after the Soviet Russians and their fellow-travellors abroad sought to engage with the West in an Alliance to defeat Hitler.

Avraham Stern made an ideological distinction between the “Enemy of my People” and the “Adversary.” This sort of sophistry led (after Stern's death) to an attempt by Itzak Shamir & his followers to procure arms from German Arms-Merchants (Nazis) in Vichy-occupied Syria, in order to drive the Brits "Out of Palestine." In retrospect that attempt looks very bad indeed -a sort of “Deal with the Devil.” But at the time it seemed expedient to the "Stern Gang."

Again, the critical difference – the philosophical junction at which the Sternists broke with Buber - was on the issue of Pacifism. There are historical precedents for such schisms; notably in the early fifteenth century in Bohemia among the Hussites.

John Huss -like Martin Luther- began his career as a Catholic monk. He was exposed to Waldensian teachings and moved in that direction. The Waldensians were pacifists, and so was John Huss. When his movement began to make waves in Prague, Huss was called before a Church Council. He was promised safe passage, coming and going, so he went.

After Huss was arrested, he was tortured by the Inquisition and burned at the stake because he would not recant. Then the Emperor Sigismund began to assemble an army to march on Prague, to put down the ‘heresy.’ It was at that point that the followers of John Huss began to arm themselves. Quite naturally they did not look forward to the pyres of the Inquisition burning in Bohemia.

The mild Waldensian pacifism that John Huss was preaching in Bohemia quickly escalated into a nationalist revolution – the first of its kind in European history. Zizska, the Bohemian general who led the forces that engaged in the revolt, invented new battle tactics, as well as new weapons – “pistols” and “howitzers” and the first armored battle-wagons, essentially “tanks.”

The schism that developed between the Hussite conservatives in Prague, and the devolutionary forces of revolution among the “Taborites” of Mount Tabor - the hill camp of the radicals, in a river-valley South-east of Prague, led to open civil war in Bohemia among the factions of the Hussites - all of whom had been in rebellion to the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund.

Once a group of people decide to engage in “revolution” – which is what general Zizska and Avraham Stern both did – things can quickly get out of hand. Armed struggle and revolution have their own logic & trajectory, and in the course of war, bloody deeds are done. That is the nature of War.

One historian i have read who did not "get" the Revolutionary zeal of the “Stern Gang” correctly was "Lenni Brenner" aka Lenny Glazer, with whom I used to sit and talk for hours back in the ‘70’s in the Mediterraneum Café in Berkeley. Lenni Brenner, in his book "Zionism in the Age of the Dictators" was too stuck on his own brand of ultra-Radical Trotskyist, Marxist-Leninism to see or give an accurate rendition of the nuances of the revolutionary tendency in Zionism that LeHI embodied.

If there are other historians – besides Walter Lacquer - who understand the nuances of the politics of the "Stern Gang" I am not aware of them. I could kick myself for not taking a tape recorder and asking Rivka many serious questions about it all while she was alive and had most of her wits still about her.

It would be nice if someone who is presently at/or connected with the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus would take the time to do the research concerning the lecture notes of Martin Buber, in order to confirm whether these things be so.

-Specifically, whether Martin Buber would tell his new students, at the beginning of each new school year: “Bring me a Palestinian Christian from Galilee, and I will show you some of the purest Jewish Blood on the planet.”

Rivka Sigal, who had not been back to Israel for years, suspected that the Likudniks had, in all probability, buried this aspect of Buber’s doctrine.

=AGAIN= It would be nice if someone would go digging in the Archives of the [front pages] of the “Palestine Post” from 1946, searching for a picture of Rivka Sigal at the age of eighteen with the caption: “Keeping Watch on the Negev” Rivka Sigal is worth at least a footnote in History.

She knew all {italics) of the leaders and most of the cadre of all {italics) of the factions of all of the Jews who participated in the events of 1946-1948 in the Holy Land. She knew them all personally.

Some while after the 1948 War was over - in the early ‘50’s - Rivka and her husband, also a veteran of LeHI in the events of ‘46-‘48, came to California to agitate & proselytize among the Jewish intellectuals of Berkeley for the One-State Solution that Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Albert Einstein, and all the members of Ihud had advocated.

Rivka and her husband - whose name I do not remember - were primarily disciples of Martin Buber, who took precedence, in their Ideology, to the lesser light of Avraham Stern. From the early ‘50’s until her husband died, they conducted a famous Sunday Salon dedicated to securing a Utopian, One-State Future for Israel, in their home on west Bancroft Avenue in Berkeley California.

The early '50's was the Golden Age for Sunday Salons in California. Back in 1952 & ’53, I was two & three, living with my mother, Marda Molyneux Liggett Evans, my Jewish grandmother, Edith Fleischer Liggett, and my uncle, William Wallace Liggett, in a second-floor Corner flat (built during the ‘teens) on the North-west corner of Taft Avenue & Broadway in Oakland.

Every Sunday my mother and I would climb on board her yellow '37 LaSalle convertible {it really did resemble a boat) and drive North to Point Richmond, where we would take the Ferry across the Richmond Straits to the dock adjacent to San Quentin, before San Rafael, and we would drive on out to Fairfax.

On Forest Avenue, on the hill above Fairfax, Walter and Edith Hoffman played gracious hosts to another -somewhat similar- Sunday Salon; which was oriented around their own, unique, Utopian, 'Christian-Anarchist' Ideology.

Walter and Edith Hoffman were German Jews who had survived the War in the forests of the Alps of Southern Germany, working with Walter Proscauer and others in the German left-Underground, smuggling renegade European Jews across the Alps, through fascist-friendly Switzerland, to the docks of Genoa, in fascist Italy.

The “Remnant” in this case were the smart ones, who foreseeing the evil, had “hidden themselves” and gone missing instead of willingly, like sheep, boarding the Boxcars on the East-bound trains.

From the port of Genoa, both during - and after the War - all manner of people were able to board Steam-ships and depart from Europe.

The Story of Walter and Edith Hoffman – like the Story of Rivka Sigal and her Stern Gang husband– if it could be researched (or imagined) at this late date could also provide the material for further Essays -if not a Book or a Movie- about the Utopian Cult of “Christian Anarchists” that the Hoffmans were fostering in their Sunday Salon on Forrest Avenue in Fairfax, in Marin County, in the early 1950’s.

I do believe that their only child, Claudia Hoffman -who was my first girlfriend, when we were two, together, and who graduated from Sir Francis Drake High School- yet remains in life. Whether she has been able to hold onto at least a portion of her parents’ >very valuable< archives these many years, I do not know.