The Oslo Disaster By Prof. Efraim Karsh

The Oslo Disaster

By Prof. Efraim KarshSeptember 4, 2016

Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 123

Prof. Efraim Karsh, the incoming director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, indicts the Oslo diplomatic process as “the starkest strategic blunder in Israel’s history” and as “one of the worst calamities ever to have afflicted Israelis and Palestinians.”

“Twenty three years after its euphoric launch on the White House lawn,” Karsh writes in this comprehensive study, “the Oslo ‘peace process’ has substantially worsened the position of both parties and made the prospects for peace and reconciliation ever more remote.”

“The process has led to establishment of an ineradicable terror entity on Israel’s doorstep, deepened Israel’s internal cleavages, destabilized its political system, and weakened its international standing.”

“It has been a disaster for West Bank and Gaza Palestinians too. It has brought about subjugation to corrupt and repressive PLO and Hamas regimes. These regimes have reversed the hesitant advent of civil society in these territories, shattered their socioeconomic wellbeing, and made the prospects for peace and reconciliation with Israel ever more remote.”

“This abject failure is a direct result of the Palestinian leadership’s perception of the process as a pathway not to a two-state solution – meaning Israel alongside a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza – but to the subversion of the State of Israel. They view Oslo not as a path to nation-building and state creation, but to the formation of a repressive terror entity that perpetuates conflict with Israel, while keeping its hapless constituents in constant and bewildered awe as Palestinian leaders line their pockets from the proceeds of this misery.”

Karsh details at length how the Oslo process has weakened Israel’s national security in several key respects.

On the strategic and military levels, it allowed the PLO to achieve in one fell swoop its strategic vision of transforming the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into terror hotbeds that would disrupt Israel’s way of life (to use Yasser Arafat’s words).

Politically and diplomatically, he says, Oslo instantaneously transformed the PLO (and, to a lesser extent, Hamas) into an internationally accepted political actor while upholding its commitment to Israel’s destruction, edging toward fully fledged statehood outside the Oslo framework, and steadily undermining Israel’s international standing.

The ending of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian population of the territories within three-and-a-half years from the onset of the process has gone totally unnoticed (due partly to Palestinian propaganda, partly to Israel’s failure to get this critical point across), with the Jewish state still subject to international opprobrium for the nonexistent “occupation.”

Domestically, Oslo radicalized Israel’s Arab minority, nipping in the bud its decades-long “Israelization” process and putting it on a collision course with Israel’s Jewish community. No less importantly, it made Israeli politics captive to the vicissitudes of Palestinian-Israeli relations, with the PLO and Hamas becoming the effective arbiters of Israel’s political discourse and electoral process.

“On the face of it,” Karsh writes, “Israel’s massive setbacks can be considered Palestinian gains. Yet one’s loss is not necessarily the other’s gain. The Palestinian leadership’s zero-sum approach and predication of Palestinian national identity on hatred of the ‘other,’ rather than on a distinct shared legacy, has resulted in decades of dispersal and statelessness.”

“Even if the PLO were to succeed in gaining international recognition of a fully fledged Palestinian state (with or without a formal peace treaty with Israel) and in preventing Hamas from seizing power, it would still be a failed entity in the worst tradition of Arab dictatorships, in permanent conflict with its Israeli neighbor while brutally repressing its unfortunate subjects.”

Karsh bemoans that fact that “there has been no real reckoning by the Oslo architects and their erstwhile ‘peace camp’ successors, both in Israel and abroad, of the worst blunder in Israel’s history, and no rethinking of its disastrously misconceived assumptions – let alone any public admission of guilt or show of remorse over its horrific costs.”

“Instead, they continue to willfully ignore the Palestinian leadership’s total lack of interest in the two-state solution and serial violation of contractual obligations. They continue to whitewash ongoing Palestinian violence, belittle the extent of Israeli suffering, and blame Jerusalem for the stalled process despite the public endorsement of the two-state solution by five successive Israeli prime ministers: Peres, Barak, Sharon, Olmert, and Netanyahu.”

“Not only has the same terror-tainted Palestinian leadership come to be universally viewed as the prospective government of a future Palestinian state, but its goal of having this state established without negotiating with Israel, or even recognizing its right to exist, seems to be gaining ever wider currency.  This soft racism – asking nothing of the Palestinians as if they are too dim or too primitive to be held accountable for their own words and actions – is an assured recipe for disaster.”

“For so long as not a single Palestinian leader evinces genuine acceptance of the two-state solution or acts in a way signifying an unqualified embrace of the idea, there can be no true or lasting reconciliation with Israel. And so long as the territories continue to be governed by the PLO’s and Hamas’s rule of the jungle, no Palestinian civil society, let alone a viable state, can develop.”

“Just as the creation of free and democratic societies in Germany and Japan after World War II necessitated a comprehensive sociopolitical and educational transformation, so it will only be when Palestinian society undergoes a real ‘spring’ that the century-long conflict between Arabs and Jews can at long last be resolved and a semi-functioning Palestinian state come into being. This requires sweeping the corrupt and oppressive PLO and Hamas rulers from power, eliminating endemic violence from political and social life, and teaching the virtues of coexistence with Israeli neighbors.”

“Sadly, the possibility of a Palestinian spring, which seemed to be in the offing in 1993 when the PLO hovered on the verge of extinction and West Bank and Gaza leadership appeared eager to strike a historic deal within the framework of the Washington peace negotiations, has been destroyed for the foreseeable future by the Oslo ‘peace process’.”

A renowned authority on Middle Eastern history and politics, Prof. Karsh has authored over 100 scholarly articles and sixteen books, and is editor of the Middle East Quarterly and Israel Affairs academic journals.

He taught for 25 years at King’s College London, where he founded and directed the Middle East and Mediterranean Studies Program (currently the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies). In 2013 he joined Bar-Ilan University as professor of political science. In November 2016 he will succeed Prof. Efraim Inbar as director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

Prof. Karsh will lecture (in Hebrew) on his conclusions this Wednesday September 7, 2016 at 5 pm (BESA Center, building 203, room 131, Bar-Ilan University).

DEC

26

The Western Wall - in the darkest night - Matz Affair

In the

end of Chanukah - Chanukah -

in the ongoing story of Joseph and his brother, which spans fourteen chapters in the book of Genesis, the Makech affair marks the most significant turnaround in Joseph's status: from the Egyptian prison, where he is thrown out as a slave following a false plot , He is led in running - after a haircut and changing clothes - to face the king of the Egyptian empire, Pharaoh. After successfully resolving Pharaoh's dreams, Pharaoh exclaims, "No wise and wise of you," and gives Joseph the royal ring. Thus Joseph became the second most important figure, after the king, in Egypt.

Such an upheaval, when we throw it away from our lives, shows that even in the heaviest darkness, there is a chance that light will hurt; Even the darkest night ends at sunrise; Even in the worst distress, there are those who hang hope - in the Creator of the world.

Joseph is the example of a person who has been in the most difficult situations: as a child he was sold into slavery; Even when he was relatively successful in his duties as a slave, hope crashed when his master's wife implored him to be seduced - while the truth was the opposite: she tried in every way to seduce and failed - and he was thrown into prison; After twelve years in prison, he was abruptly executed and in no time became one of the most influential figures in the Egyptian empire.

During all this time, in all the highs and lows that befell his life, Joseph held the belief that God was leading his life, and that there was intention and trend in every event that visited him. After years, he realized that the past march had prepared the possibility for his extended family to go down to Egypt and live there during the famine years. But even before he realized - he believed, he trusted God with all his heart.

Perfect timing, every year, is called the Macch episode during Chanukah. We celebrate Chanukah's days by lighting candles and saying the 'Halel' prayer, in memory of the victory of a handful of Jews who fought against a foreign government - the Seleucid-Greek kingdom - who sought to force idolatry and forbid the Jews from observing the Torah. This victory, which took place some 2200 years ago, signaled an exit from the darkness in the spiritual sense: the Jewish people in Israel gained political independence and could have a Jewish lifestyle; And he expressed a departure from the darkness of the light in a practical way as well: the darkened and defiled temple was once again illuminated by the holy lamp.

The handful of Hasmonean priests who went to war against the Saluki-Greek army believed that dark reality should be enlightened. They believed that God would save them from their grief. This belief gained strength in them and led them to victory.

Symbolically, Chanukah days are the darkest days of the year: the shortest hours of light and the long hours of darkness. And even in the dark hours of the moon, we are almost invisible - both because it is the end of the Hebrew month and the beginning of the next month, and because of the cloudy weather.

In this darkness we light candles. We declare - to ourselves, to our family and to all who wish to hear - the Jewish belief in the triumph of light over darkness.

By lighting the Chanukah candles, we will illuminate the street, illuminate the house, illuminate the hearts in the light of faith.

The story of the 'stolen' missile boats Israel used in the Yom Kippur War

Half a century has passed since Israel defied a French embargo and stole its own boats from Cherbourg harbor on Christmas Eve, titillating the world media.

By ABRAHAM RABINOVICH   

DECEMBER 21, 2019 20:36

THE DESTROYER ‘Eilat,’ first victim of the naval missile age.

(photo credit: GPO)

Fifty years ago this Christmas Eve, five small naval vessels slipped out of Cherbourg Harbor after midnight into the teeth of a force-nine gale. Ordered by Israel from a local shipyard, the “patrol boats” had been embargoed by France for political reasons. The Israelis were now running off with them.The vessels would be refueled at sea by Israeli merchant ships moving into position along the 5,600-km. escape route.

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As television crews flew over the Mediterranean searching for the boats, and the French defense minister called for the air force to “interdict” the fleeing vessels, the world media chortled at Israel’s chutzpah. But the real story was far bigger than they knew.It had begun in 1961 when the commander of the Israel Navy, V.-Adm. Yohai Bin-Nun, summoned senior staff to a brainstorming session in navy headquarters on Haifa’s Mount Carmel. He passed on warnings that the navy might be downgraded to a coast guard if its antiquated fleet of World War II hand-me-downs could no longer defend Israel’s sea lanes. The task would then be left to the air force. What options did the navy have to stay relevant? Bin-Nun asked his staff.>From the two-day meeting, an unusual proposal floated to the surface. Israel’s fledgling military industries had developed a crude missile which was rejected by both the Artillery Corps and air force. If mounted on small boats, an officer at the meeting suggested, it could give them the punch of heavy cruisers.Small meant affordable. It also meant much smaller crews; the sinking of a destroyer with a crew of 200-250 men, then the navy’s backbone, would be catastrophic for a small country like Israel. Small boats could not take heavy guns because of the recoil, but missiles have no recoil.The idea was dismissed by most of those present, who noted that there was not a Western country that had such boats. However, the proposal resonated with Bin-Nun. It might be fanciful, but he had heard no better idea. After mulling it over a few months, he asked his deputy, Capt. Shlomo Erell, to examine the proposal seriously.

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Deputy defense minister Shimon Peres, to whom Bin-Nun had gone for funding, gave the project his blessing. Bin-Nun said that if he got just six missile boats, he would scrap the rest of the fleet.TWO YEARS before, Peres had traveled to snow-covered Bavaria for a secret five-hour meeting in the home of German defense minister Franz-Josef Strauss. At the center of their talk was the relationship between the Jewish state and the country that had murdered six million Jews less than two decades before. The emotional chasm that lay between their countries was as yet unbridged by diplomatic ties.Peres suggested that Germany take a significant step toward acknowledging its past by furnishing Israel with arms needed for its survival, doing so without publicity, to avoid Arab ire, and without payment, because Israel couldn’t afford it.Strauss said he would recommend the proposal to his government. German chancellor Konrad Adenauer confirmed that pledge to David Ben-Gurion, when the two elder statesmen met in New York.The next budget of the German Federal Republic would contain an allocation of $60 million for “aid in the form of equipment” over a five-year period, without specifying the recipient. A list of military equipment had been drawn up, most of it standard items like artillery and half-tracks. After his conversation with Bin-Nun, Peres had the list adjusted to include six missile boats. (Six more would be added later.)Erell, who succeeded Bin-Nun as navy chief, formed a think tank with personnel from the navy and from Israel Aircraft Industries to explore the concept in detail. The project was given the lyrical code name of Shalechet (Falling Leaves). A maverick engineer, Ori Even-Tov, was lured from Rafael, Israel’s leading defense company, and succeeded in developing an effective sea-to-sea missile, the Gabriel, which would be at the heart of the entire program.But Erell wanted a multipurpose vessel, not just a missile platform. In a meeting at the German Defense Ministry he said that, for Israel, the boats were capital ships that must be capable of carrying out an assortment of missions. It would have rapid-firing guns that could be used against planes, ships or shore targets, sonar for sub hunting, plus radar and communication equipment more advanced than those carried by destroyers several times its size.The Shalechet team was rapidly expanded, obliging the navy to triple the number of men passing through its officers’ course. At the height of the decade-long project, hundreds of engineers, naval architects and others worked on the project every day of the year except Yom Kippur, often 12 to 14 hours a day; a few worked on Yom Kippur as well.The project was shifted to a modern, windowless plant. Sometimes personnel who arrived early in the morning were startled when they left the building to see that night had come; even come and gone. There was no precedent for what they were doing and no textbook. The team members were working at the cutting edge of naval technology, forging solution after innovative solution, a precursor to Israel’s emergence as the Start-Up Nation. For many, it would be the high point of their lives.Straw boss for the team developing the boats’ weapon system was Aviah Shalif, an engineer who had grown up in Jerusalem with Bin-Nun and Even-Tov. Wiry and acerbic, he would swiftly lay tangled problems bare and propose solutions. His ability to keep things moving forward mattered more than the relative merits of the technical approaches among which he had to choose. In a document of several hundred pages, Shalif formulated the “logic” of the weapon system, showing how all elements affected one another. It was done without the aid of a computer, which he had not yet learned to use.Midway, Israel learned that the Soviet Union had beaten them to the punch. It had developed its own missile boats and was supplying dozens to Egypt and Syria. The boats were armed with the Styx missile, whose deadliness was demonstrated shortly after the Six Day War when a small Egyptian vessel, barely visible on the horizon, fired four missiles at the Israeli flagship, the destroyer Eilat. All hit, and the Eilat went down, the first vessel ever sunk by a ship-to-ship missile. Of the 200-man crew, 47 were killed and 100 wounded. The Styx threat loomed even larger when intelligence learned that it had twice the range of Israel’s Gabriel. The Arab boats could simply stay out of Gabriel range and unleash their no-miss missile in safety.Erell asked the navy’s chief electronics officer, Capt. Herut Tzemah, if there was anything that could be done. Guessing at the electronic parameters of the Styx radar, Tzemah devised electronic countermeasures to divert incoming missiles. He also recommended as a backup rockets firing chaff – strips of aluminum that confuse radar. The efficacy of this anti-Styx umbrella could be tested only in combat. If he had guessed wrong, the war at sea would end quickly.With the funds provided by Germany, 12 “patrol boats” were ordered from a Cherbourg shipyard. The vessels were modified versions of Germany’s sturdy Jaguar torpedo boat, itself a descendant of the E-boats (Schnellboot) that harried allied shipping in the North Sea in the Second World War. The vessels were to serve as platforms for the missile boat taking shape in the minds of the navy command.Seven of the Cherbourg boats were launched – one every two or three months – and sailed for Israel, before French president Charles de Gaulle ordered an embargo following an Israeli commando raid on Beirut Airport. The embargo forbade taking the remaining boats to Israel, but their construction and even their testing at sea were permitted since the shipbuilder would receive final payment only when all the boats were completed.
ENTER V.-ADM. Mordecai (Mocca) Limon. He had been appointed commander of the Israel Navy at age 26 and was now head of Israel’s military purchasing mission in Paris. He was determined to get the remaining boats to Israel as soon as the last one was launched. In the next war, the navy would probably have to fight simultaneously on both the Egyptian and Syrian fronts and needed every boat it had.Prime minister Golda Meir objected to Limon’s proposal to simply run off with the boats one night, saying that France would likely sever relations. Limon kept pushing, and she tempered the veto by saying that nothing “illegal” should be done that could endanger diplomatic ties. To Limon, the difference between legal and illegal could be no wider than a lawyer’s comma, and in the circumstances that might be wide enough to squeeze a missile-boat squadron through.As the last boat neared completion toward the end of 1969, he arranged to meet for lunch in Copenhagen Airport with a Norwegian shipyard owner, Martin Siemm – a resistance hero in the war – who had visited Israel and had friends there. It was a friend who gave Limon Siemm’s name. Explaining the situation in Cherbourg, Limon asked if he would agree to help Israel out of its quandary. There would be no payment, only possible embarrassment or worse if the plot unraveled.Siemm’s face brightened as he grasped the stakes involved and the ploy being spelled out. “Give me 48 hours,” he said. When he called Limon from Oslo it was to give his assent.Meanwhile, the boats were being prepared for the breakout. Limon proposed that the boats depart on Christmas Eve, when security would be minimal. Supply officers avoided making suspicious bulk purchases for the trip by buying food in small quantities in numerous groceries and butcher shops around the greater Cherbourg area. Fuel was added to the boats in small increments almost daily so that, as they got lower in the water, it was difficult to perceive the change.Concurrently, the legal obfuscation was proceeding apace. Siemm sent a letter to the owner of the Cherbourg shipyard, 75-year-old Felix Amiot, expressing interest in acquiring four to six fast boats for assistance in offshore oil exploration. Did Amiot have such craft at hand? The characteristics of the vessels he was seeking happened to match those of the Cherbourg boats. Amiot replied promptly that he had five suitable boats whose owners were “having trouble taking delivery.” Both letters had been drafted by Limon.Amiot sent copies to Gen. Louis Bonte, the French official who would have to approve their sale. Bonte was delighted at the prospect of getting rid of the embarrassing clutter of five embargoed vessels in Cherbourg Harbor – bad for France’s image as a reliable arms exporter. He called Limon to inform him of the Norwegian offer and ask if Israel was prepared to waive its claim to the boats and accept its money back.“Those are our boats,” replied Limon. “We paid for them and we need them.” However, he said, he would pass on Bonte’s query to the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. Limon had deftly inserted the sting.Several days later, an anxious Bonte called to ask if he had received a reply yet. “Not yet,” said Limon. “I’ll call you when I do.”He let a few more days pass before calling Bonte. “They went against my advice and are letting the boats go. They’re just fed up with the whole business.” France’s Interministerial Committee on Arms Exports duly gave the sale to Norway final approval.On December 22, the three principal actors in the affair – Limon, Siemm and Amiot – met in Paris to sign two contracts which would be sent to Bonte’s office – one canceling the original contract by which Israel had purchased the boats from Amiot, the other a contract between Amiot and Siemm transferring the five boats to Oslo for the price Israel had paid.The coup came the following day. The three men met again and signed a new set of agreements undoing everything they had signed the day before, returning the situation to the status quo ante. The boats were legally back in Israeli hands even though they had ostensibly been sold to a Norwegian company. These documents were not sent to Bonte; they were intended only to ensure the three parties would have no future claim on each other regarding the fictitious sale to Norway.The breakout planning, which had been run out of Mocca Limon’s hip pocket, had by now become a quasi-military operation run from naval headquarters. Israeli merchant ships making regular runs to and from Europe were told by naval headquarters to deploy at given locations and times along the 5,600-km. escape route from Cherbourg to Haifa in order to fuel the small craft on their weeklong voyage or otherwise render assistance. Temporary fueling installations were built on two of the vessels, and their crews trained in fueling small craft at sea – not as easy as it looked.There was even a brief language course to enable the Cherbourg boat crewmen – young draftees who may or may not be able to speak English – to communicate with the civilian seamen on the mother ships, a mix of Israelis and foreigners who used English between them. The course covered Hebrew-English nautical equivalents.Radio wavelengths permitting the Cherbourg boats to communicate with the freighters were issued.A few days before Christmas, close to 100 Israeli naval crewmen in civilian clothing were flown to Paris and dispatched by train in small groups to Cherbourg, where they were hidden below decks until departure.Commanding the breakout in Cherbourg was Capt. Hadar Kimche. He had fixed the Christmas Eve departure for 8 p.m. when the good citizens of Cherbourg would be sitting down en famille to their holiday dinner. However, a powerful storm was churning the English Channel beyond the breakwater, and even large freighters were not venturing out. The five captains gathered in Kimche’s boat, listening to weather reports from the BBC and other sources. With them was the shipyard official, Monsieur Corbinais, who had overseen the construction of the boats. Near midnight, he left briefly to attend midnight mass at a nearby 14th-century church. He softly added a prayer of his own to the liturgy: “May they reach safe harbor.”Limon had also come to see the boats off. He urged Kimche to depart regardless of the weather. Otherwise, they might be stuck for days, with constant danger of discovery. Kimche, however, said they would not move until the wind shifted. It was too dangerous now to cross the Bay of Biscay. As commander of the boats, the decision was his, not Limon’s.At 1:30 a.m. a radioman monitoring the BBC entered with the latest bulletin: the west wind was shifting to the northwest and diminishing in strength. Kimche said they would await the 2 a.m. broadcast for confirmation. It came. “We leave at 2:30,” Kimche said. “Synchronize your watches.” The captains then hurried to their boats tied alongside.As the craft moved off in single file, Limon waited on the pier in the driving rain, his coat collar turned up, to see if the boats would be turning back. After half an hour he drove to Amiot’s nearby residence and knocked on the door. “C’est moi, Mocca.” Amiot, in a robe, ushered him in.“I want to inform you,” said Limon, “that the boats have sailed.”Amiot bowed his head and wept. Limon sensed the old man’s relief that his contract had been honored. Amiot poured cognac and the pair toasted each other and toasted the boats. Before turning to leave, Limon took out a billfold from his jacket pocket and handed Amiot a check for $5 million, the final payment. The last boats had now been delivered.They arrived in Haifa on New Year’s Eve 1970 to sirens and large crowds. To the public, the Cherbourg boats, presumed to be ordinary naval craft, had accomplished their mission by reaching the Israeli port. But it would be nearly four years before their conversion to missile boats was completed, tactical doctrine formulated and crews trained in a new type of warfare.
THE FIRST time the entire missile boat flotilla engaged in maneuvers together was the first week in October 1973. The boats returned to their base the morning before Yom Kippur, a day before the war’s outbreak.On the first night, four Israeli missile boats engaged three Syrian missile boats off the Syrian port of Latakia in the first-ever missile-to-missile battle at sea. The Syrians, as expected, fired first.The Israeli sailors watched fireballs arcing into the sky and then descended straight at them. All knew that every Styx fired at an Israeli target until now had hit – the four that sank the Eilat and two that sank a small wooden fishing boat a year afterward. The crewmen’s lives hung now on Tzemah’s educated guess regarding the Styx. In the final seconds of their trajectory, the missiles succumbed to an unseen force tugging at them and plunged into the sea.The Soviet-built boats in the Arab fleets had no such electronic defenses. The Israeli vessels off Latakia closed range and destroyed two of the Syrian missile boats with Gabriels as well as two other warships. The captain of the third Syrian missile boat, witnessing what happened to his comrades and with no missiles left, drove his boat onto the shore so that he and his crew could escape. In a reprise two nights later, three Egyptian missile boats were sunk near Alexandria.Erell, who died last year, had been in Europe when the war broke out. He returned to Israel, joining the flotilla during one of its nighttime forays against the Syrian coast. He was captivated by the way the captains – one of whom was his son, Udi – coordinated their movements despite the wild weavings and seeming confusion of a night battle at 40 knots.The Israeli boats raked Syrian ports with gunfire and dashed toward them, trying to draw Syrian warships out. The Syrians did not come out, but there was fire from coastal artillery and occasionally missiles fired from inside their harbors. The boats seemed to slalom between the plumes thrown up in the sea. Along the coast, oil tanks had been set aflame by gunfire.From the direction of Tartus to the south, four balls of flame suddenly appeared in the sky, heading in his direction like planes in formation. Erell was petrified; but if the others on the bridge also were, they managed to hide it.“They’re beginning to turn,” said a bridge officer. To Erell, it seemed as if the lights were still heading between his eyes. But the bridge officer, with two weeks of battle under his belt, could make out a slight shifting. Soon, Erell could see it, too.From the fourth day, the Arab fleets did not venture out of harbor. No Israeli boat was hit in the 18-day war, and the shipping lanes to Haifa remained open for much needed supplies.A country with little naval tradition, a limited industrial base and a population of only three million – half that of New York City at the time – had challenged the advanced weaponry of a superpower at sea and achieved total victory, introducing a new naval age.As a traumatized Israel tried to grasp what had happened to its vaunted army and air force on Yom Kippur, the navy’s performance was little noted. It would be two years before the navy’s performance was mentioned in a public forum.But the navies of the world had taken note. The United States, which had been deeply concerned by the sinking of the Eilat for what it might portend for them, sent a large naval team to debrief the Israelis. The examination included a computer analysis of the missile clashes. The US had invested astronomical sums in shipboard antimissile systems, whereas the Israelis had performed superbly with a system so seemingly simple that the Americans were amazed it had worked at all.The American team included Adm. Julian Lake, one of the world’s foremost experts on electronic warfare. He had studied EW systems in more than a score of allied countries around the world. He would tell a reporter that the way the Israel Navy had analyzed the nature of the threat facing it and taken the necessary steps to solve the problem “stands out as the one clear example [in the development of modern weapon systems] where everything was done right.”
THE ISRAELI missile boats – outnumbered and outranged by the Arab missile boats – had swept clear the Eastern Mediterranean of enemy vessels, kept the sea lanes to Haifa open, prevented attacks on Israel’s vulnerable coast, sunk at least eight Arab warships, including six missile boats, wreaked havoc on oil tank farms along Syria’s coast and drawn Arab troops far from the main battlefield by threatening commando landings. All this without losing a man or a boat. (Two Israeli frogmen were killed in penetrating Port Said, and two crewmen on patrol boats were killed in clashes in the Red Sea.)The missile boats successfully eluded all 54 Styx missiles fired at them, as well as many hundreds of shells fired by shore batteries during nightly raids. The development of the boats and the Gabriel missile would spur Israel into an era of hi-tech on which much of its future economy would rest.The Cherbourg Project was a reaffirmation of a beleaguered nation’s most precious asset – national will. In conceiving and undertaking something so unorthodox and risky; in the dedication invested in the Shalechet development program; in the tough-mindedness with which the boats were snatched from Cherbourg and then deployed against the Styx, “Cherbourg” testified that Israel’s life force had not ebbed.n
The writer is author of The Boats of Cherbourg, newly reissued as a paperback. He is also author of The Yom Kippur War and The Battle for Jerusalem. abra@netvision.net.ilThe French reactAlthough the French government fumed at the boats’ escape, most of the French public applauded the Israelis for their audacity, according to French polls, and so did virtually all the French media. The embargo, they understood, had not been imposed because of any harm Israel had done to France, but because of president Charles de Gaulle’s political tilt toward the Arab world after his withdrawal from Algeria.The only reprisal against Israel was to demand the recall of Limon. Many in Israel had expected that he would be declared persona non grata, which would have barred his subsequent reentry even as a tourist. A straightforward recall carried no such sanction.After his return to Israel, Limon became the local representative of Baron Edmond de Rothschild of France, who had extensive business interests in Israel. Limon’s connection to the House of Rothschild would become more intimate when his daughter married into another branch of the family.Limon put off a return to France for half a year but finally flew to Paris to attend a business meeting. With some apprehension, he approached the passport control officer at the airport who examined his passport for some time. The officer turned the pages, looked at it sideways and then looked up at the tall traveler.“You are Admiral Limon?” he asked. Limon acknowledged his identity. The officer rose and reached over the glass partition.“Congratulations,” he said, shaking Limon’s hand. – A.R.

Tags yom kippur war christmas Ship

Final Chapter In One Of The World’s Oldest Jewish Communities - Yemen

Final Chapter In One Of The World’s Oldest Jewish Communities - Yemen

Although the vast majority of the ancient Jewish community of Yemen was airlifted to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet in 1948-49, a small remnant remained in the country. In succeeding years, that remnant came under constantly deteriorating personal security conditions. A small emigration was allowed to continue sporadically until 1962, when a civil war in Yemen put an abrupt halt at that time to any further Jewish exodus.

Through a secret mission, 10 Yemeni Jews immigrated to Israel on February 19, 2009, and in July 2009 three families, 16 people in total, followed suit. Further trickles of immigration of Jews to Israel were carried out in covert operations in succeeding years.

Nineteen of the last remaining Jews in Yemen were airlifted to Israel on March 21, 2016, by the Jewish Agency for Israel. The secret operation, which rescued all but 50 Yemeni Jews, had been in planning for over a year and included coordination with the US State Department. Manny Dahari, a Yemeni Jew who had come to the US as a young boy, had lobbied for years with Israeli and American authorities to bring about the release of the remaining Jews, including members of his own family.

Thus, a chapter in the history of one of the world’s oldest Jewish diaspora communities was brought to an end.

San Remo Conference Of 1920: Reshaping The Middle East and re-established The Jewish State of Israel

San Remo Conference Of 1920: Reshaping The Middle East and re-established The Jewish State of Israel

Two decades before the United Nations Palestine partition resolution of 1947 that led to the declaration of the State of Israel, an international conference was held in Europe that set the framework for the future independent status of the Land of Israel. That conference was held 99 years ago in San Remo, Italy, from April 19-26, 1920.

The San Remo Conference was held following the conclusion of World War I to determine the precise boundaries for territories captured by the Allies from the Ottoman Empire in that war.

The conference, attended by Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, and with the United States as an observer, was a continuation of a previous meeting between these allied powers that had been held in London in February 1920. In February, it was decided, that Palestine would be under the rule of the British Mandate, while Syria and Lebanon would be under French rule. Part of the adopted resolution at San Remo clearly stated the intentions to make Palestine a legal Jewish homeland, confirming the pledge to that effect contained in the 1917 Balfour Declaration of Great Britain.

In the 1920s, as well as in 1947, the name “Palestine” was the name referring to the Land of Israel. In effect, then, the San Remo Resolution created a legal precedent for Palestine to be restored as the national Jewish homeland. That precedent was then given further international confirmation by the 1947 Palestine Partition Plan adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.

Looking back, one can thus say that in another year, Israel can celebrate its inauguration that took place exactly a century ago in San Remo in Italy. 

History’s Leading Philo-Semites, Week 3: Napoleon R’ Mordechai Torczyner –

History’s Leading Philo-Semites, Week 3: Napoleon R’ Mordechai Torczyner – torczyner@torontotorah.com Continued from Casimir 1. Jan Dlugosz, Encyclopedia.com (1415–1480), Polish cleric and annalist. He acted as secretary to Cardinal Zbigniew Olesnicki in Cracow, who was violently anti-Jewish. After Olesnicki's death in 1455, Dlugosz began a history of Poland, which he concluded in 1479. He was appointed archbishop of Lvov in 1478. A primary source for historical material, his annals include a firsthand account of the massacre of the Jews in Cracow in 1407 and the plunder, forcible conversions, and burnings of Jewish houses which accompanied it. His work set the anti-Jewish tone of medieval Polish historiography. 2. Małgorzata Łacka-Małecka, Jan Długosz Academy, Jews in the Annals of Jan Długosz – an Eternal, Living Stereotype Jan Długosz, the most outstanding Polish writer of the Middle Ages and one of the greatest historians of his time, became famous for writing, with great flair, Annales seu cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae (The Annals, Namely the Chronicles of the Famous Congress Kingdom of Poland). The Roczniki (Annals) consists of twelve books covering the events of those times in the history of Poland, all the way through to the contemporary time of the author. In writing the Annales, Długosz performed a work of titanic proportions, using as sources chronicles, annals, the lives of saints, documents found in church and royal archives and eyewitness accounts. He also included his own accounts because, as a member of the church and political elite, he participated in many important state events himself…. The image of the Jew, which Długosz created in his stories concerning Host profanation and the ritual murder of children, demands us to perceive the Jewish population as murderers, servants of Satan and sorcerers. Was the chronicler overcome by a collective phobia? Did he really believe that Christian children were cruelly murdered? Writing in this manner, as presented above, Długosz further strengthened, in the consciousness of people, the image of the Jew as a persecutor and a contemptible torturer of Christians which Europe, for the first time, came to know at the beginning of the 12th century. 3. Prsezlaw Mojecki (16th century Poland), Jewish Cruelties, tr. Chone Shmeruk pg. 17 We know from our chronicles that our Polish Asswerus, Casimir the Great, took Esther in place of his own wife, the despised Adleida, and begat with her two sons – Niemira and Pelka – and daughters as well, and, persuaded by Esther, he permitted to bring them up as Jews. Likewise, Esther’s gentle words induced him to devise by scheme this loathsome law under the name of the Prince Boleslaw, who died a long time ago. 4. S. Y. Agnon, The Heart and the Eyes (1943) And Esther lay in her grave, as the dead lie in their grave, and she could not rest with the dead, for each man and woman whose eyes and heart are not with him will not find rest in the grave. And Esther arose from her grave at night and sought her heart and her eyes, which she had given to her husband the king, and which the king had taken for himself. And Esther wandered from her grave to the place of her pleasure to seek her heart and her eyes, but she could not find the door. For Esther had no eyes, and she could not see, for the king had taken them for himself, with her heart. So Esther would do every night, until her brethren recited Shema. When they read the words of this Torah, “And you shall not stray after your hearts and after your eyes,” Esther returned to her grave, to return that night and seek her heart and her eyes, after which she had strayed. 5. Prof. Hillel Weiss, לגויים יהודים בין פתולוגיים יחסים ,https://www.haaretz.co.il/literature/1.1089825 [Agnon’s tale] was a sort of explanation of the pathological, sadomasochistic relationship between Jews and the nations. The Impact of Casimir III 6. Rabbi Yissachar Tamar (20th century Poland), Aleh Tamar to Jerusalem Talmud, Pesachim 2:5 This is the principle: Exile begins sweet and ends bitter, and Israel was bitter in the beginning and then ended sweet. Lore tells that when the exiles of Germany came to Poland, they said, Poh leen (“stay here”) – meaning: In truth, this land is also not our home, but it is an inn in which we can rest until the dawn of redemption arrives. But the destruction of the exiles of Israel in Europe in our day has shown that if Israel has no permanent home in the Land of Israel, then the exile will not serve even as a safe inn. If there is no home for Israel, then even an inn does not exist. 7. Prof. Ruth Wisse, Jews and Other Poles, https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/history-ideas/2015/12/jews and-other-poles/ Poland! It’s one of those words capable of causing a rift between otherwise perfectly compatible Jewish minds. When I mention an upcoming trip to Warsaw, a friend says: “How can you be going there?! I would never set foot in that place!” On my return, reporting on the country’s warming attitudes toward Jews to another friend who was born and spent her childhood there, she stops me: “I don’t want to hear any more.” I had forgotten for a moment that Polish neighbors had killed her father. There is no way of simplifying or ironing out the relation of Jews to Poland, Poland to Jews, each to their common history. It is a fact that Poland offered Jews some of the best conditions they ever experienced in exile. Even if one discounts the saying, “Poland was heaven for the nobles, hell for the peasants, and paradise for the Jews,” it is plain that the last named did enjoy unusual opportunities in the country—until they didn’t. 8. Times of Israel, Polish PM Cancels Trip to Israel Amid Spat Over Netanyahu Holocaust Comments, Feb 17 ‘19 The crisis emerged after Netanyahu was asked by The Times of Israel in Warsaw about a controversial agreement between Israel and Poland to end a dispute over a law passed by Warsaw that criminalizes blaming the Polish nation for Holocaust crimes. Netanyahu denied suggestions of going along with historical revisionism: “Here I am saying Poles cooperated with the Nazis. I know the history and I don’t whitewash it. I bring it up,” he said. He added that “a not insignificant number” of Poles had collaborated and said, “I don’t know one person who was sued for saying that.” A Jerusalem Post story (later corrected) mischaracterized the Israeli leader’s quote as saying the Polish nation collaborated with the Nazis. And in some news reports, Netanyahu was quoted as saying “The Poles cooperated with the Nazis.” Netanyahu’s office later clarified that he did not say “the,” and played reporters a recording of the comments to confirm this… Poland later said it had received clarifications from the Israeli government that had alleviated its concerns. The initial news reports led Polish President Adrzej Duda to threaten to block the high-level summit from taking place in Israel. Duda wrote on Twitter that if Netanyahu indeed had made the comments, he would offer to host an upcoming meeting of the so-called Visegrad group himself instead of holding the meeting in Israel. “In this situation, Israel is not a good place to meet,” Duda had said. The Jew of the Future http://www.torontotorah.com/futurejew Napoleon: An Introduction 9. Mostly Kosher, http://mostlykosher.blogspot.com/2011/08/napoleon-and-tisha-beav-myth.html Aug 10 ‘11 
The story is told that Napoleon was walking through the streets of Paris one Tisha B'Av. As his entourage passed a synagogue he heard wailing and crying coming from within; he sent an aide to inquire as to what had happened. The aide returned and told Napoleon that the Jews were in mourning over the loss of their Temple. Napoleon was indignant! "How come I wasn't informed? When did this happen? Which Temple?" The aide responded, "They lost their Temple in Jerusalem on this date 1,700 years ago." Napoleon stood in silence and then said, "Certainly a people which has mourned the loss of their Temple for so long will survive to see it rebuilt!" This story is so famous, I was sure it was true. However a furious Google search has yet to provide a source for this tale. I did however come across this very same question, posed to J. David Markham - President of the International Napoleonic Society and one of my favorite podcasters. The noted historian of Napoleon answered that he had never heard that story. You can draw your own conclusions. 10.Dr. Allen Hertz, Jews, Napoleon, and the Ottoman Empire: The 1797-1799 Proclamations to the Jews In 1819, Napoleon also remembered that the French Revolutionary Army had in early 1799 sent Jewish agents to Damascus and Aleppo. The implication was that their mission was to secretly gather intelligence and discreetly stimulate local Jewish support… Perhaps linked to one or more of these Jewish agents is a pitch-perfect document that (without payment or other financial reward or incentive) first surfaced in 1940 London… Originating from Nazi Vienna (August 1939), it was an elderly Jewish refugee's last-minute typescript of his family's long-treasured, handwritten, German translation, said to be derived from an earlier text, perhaps partly in French and partly in Hebrew. This is the purported "Letter to the Jewish Nation from the French Commander-in-Chief Buonaparte," dated April 20, 1799. In that specific year, that date was notably the first day of Passover… There was also a covering letter said to be from Aaron, son of Levi, Rabbi of Jerusalem (dated Nisan 5559). Both letters claim to be written from Jerusalem, falsely identified as the site of Napoleon's headquarters. In the context of the revolutionary doctrine of self-determination, the alleged Napoleon letter puts great emphasis on Jewish peoplehood. It describes "Israelites" as "lawful heirs" to their "ancestral land" and encourages them to "hasten" home to reclaim their "patrimony." It also quotes from the Catholic Old Testament and offers extravagant rhetoric lauding the Revolutionary French Republic. The alleged rabbinic letter refers to building a Temple in Jerusalem and calls to arms all able-bodied Jews, no matter where they live. 11. Prof. Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, Napoleon, French Jews and the Idea of Regeneration At the same time, there were more nefarious aspects to Napoleon’s treatment of the Jews. Most notably, he reversed the universalism of the French Revolution (the idea that “all men” were considered equal before the law), and made French Jews work to demonstrate their fitness to be equal. Moreover, he often referred to them negatively, calling them “a contemptible and degraded nation... capable of the lowest deeds” and “a vile people, cowardly and cruel.” 12. Some Basic Facts • 1789 Third Estate forms the National Assembly, by force • 1789 France’s National Assembly: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen • 1790-1791 Sephardic Jewish citizenship, then Ashkenazi Jewish citizenship • 1791 Constitution accepted by Louis XVI • 1792 Napoleon becomes a Captain in the French military, age 26 • 1792 French Monarchy abolished • 1795 Napoleon becomes a General, age 29 • 1796-1798 Napoleon conquers Italy, makes a treaty with Austria, invades Egypt • 1799 Napoleon becomes First Consul • 1801 Napoleon’s pact with the Pope • 1802 Napoleon becomes Consul for Life Napoleon and the Jews 13.Dr. Allan Hertz Allen Z. Hertz was senior advisor in the Privy Council Office serving Canada's Prime Minister and the federal cabinet. He formerly worked in Canada's Foreign Affairs Department and earlier taught history and law at universities in New York, Montreal, Toronto and Hong Kong. He studied European history and languages at McGill University (B.A.) and then East European and Ottoman history at Columbia University (M.A., Ph.D.). He also has international law degrees from Cambridge University (LL.B.) and the University of Toronto (LL.M.). 14.Dr. Allen Hertz, Jews, Napoleon, and the Ottoman Empire: The 1797-1799 Proclamations to the Jews The world seems to have known little or nothing about the "Letter to the Jewish Nation" dated April 20, 1799. But way too soon to have then originated from distant Ottoman "Syria" came remarkable European tidings about an apparently earlier, undated (and perhaps entirely unrelated) Napoleonic "proclamation to the Jews." The latter news perhaps reflects the proclamation to the Jews that the Turks had heard about in the months before September 10, 1798. In this connection, two or three writers of the last thirty years have referred to an alleged April 1799 report, most appropriately from Constantinople. This news from Turkey was said to have been perhaps initially published, maybe in early May 1799, in the Gazette de Hambourg, a city that was neutral during the War of the Second Coalition. Such vague references are hard to verify directly, because the 1799 numbers of the Gazette de Hambourg are extremely rare. I have been unable to find them. But, let us turn our attention to the press of Berlin, the capital of another neutral power, Prussia. News of an alleged April 22nd Constantinople report featured in the Vossische Zeitung, Number 58 (May 14, 1799): “Constantinople, April 22nd. In several African and Asian places, Buonaparte has issued, as it is called, a proclamation to the Jews for the restoration of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.” Too soon to have been copied from the Vossische Zeitung, but perhaps derived from a possibly earlier publication in the Gazette de Hambourg, was the same story in The True Briton of London. This alleged an April 12th Constantinople report, news of which had just arrived, along with many other items, in the latest mails from Hamburg (May 17, 1799): "Buonaparte, it is said, has published a Proclamation to the Jews dispersed in Africa and Asia, inviting them to restore the Kingdom of Jerusalem." Likely too soon to have been copied from London, but perhaps derived from Hamburg or Berlin, was the same story in Le Moniteur (Paris). But cited as source there was an alleged April 17th report from Constantinople (May 22, 1799): “Constantinople, April 17th. Bonaparte arranged for publication of a proclamation in which he invites all the Jews of Asia and Africa to come line up under his banners in order to re-establish ancient Jerusalem.” Taken as a whole, the pertinent paragraphs in Le Moniteur contain nothing that could not have been copied from the information already provided by the Vossische Zeitung which had covered more ground... Nonetheless, the article in Le Moniteur was politically significant, because that newspaper was known to regularly publish news, as provided by the Directory. Clearly, the editors would have waited for an official green light for whatever they printed about Napoleon, who was of key concern to the Directors. 15.Dr. Allen Hertz, Jews, Napoleon, and the Ottoman Empire: The 1797-1799 Proclamations to the Jews News of an undated proclamation to the Jews reached the Ottoman Turks certainly before Sultan Selim III declared war against France (September 10, 1798)… That is what we learn from the Ottoman Empire's chosen historiographer, Ahmet Cevdet Pasha who intellectually was a towering figure... Scrupulous about identifying his sources, Cevdet specifically writes that it was then heard "from the mouth of a Jew" that, as "understood from a printed and published official declaration," Jews from all over had been invited to agree on "establishing a Jewish government in Jerusalem." [Tarih-i Cevdet, New Edition, 2nd Printing, Hicri 1309, Vol. 6, p. 282.] Who was this Jew who told the Ottomans about such a declaration? It is impossible to say. However, we should bear in mind that Napoleon certainly had Jewish spies, agents or emissaries in the Balkans... 16.Dr. Allen Hertz, Jews, Napoleon, and the Ottoman Empire: The 1797-1799 Proclamations to the Jews Another reflection of the public's fascination with the Egyptian campaign was information which fellow Director Merlin de Douai got from Commissioner François, a senior official in northern France. François troubled to report a conversation with a Jew from Germany. According to the latter, Europe's Jews viewed Napoleon as the Messiah whose coming would trigger the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple. The German Jew also said that 1.5 million Jews were awaiting Napoleon's signal to leave for the Mideast. The counsel from Commissioner François was simultaneously strategic and skeptical (February 28, 1799): “One can derive a great deal from these people by flattering their religious prejudices. I leave it to your wisdom either to work to develop this idea if you think it of some value, or to just laugh it off as a joke.” 17.Dr. Allen Hertz, Jews, Napoleon, and the Ottoman Empire: The 1797-1799 Proclamations to the Jews As an exile on Saint Helena, Napoleon carefully read the back issues of Le Moniteur. He would thus have been reminded of the proclamation mentioned in the publication of May 22, 1799. Nonetheless, his own account of the campaign said nothing about issuance of a "proclamation" to the Jews. But very much to the point, Napoleon then chose to refer to the Jewish agents sent to Damascus and Aleppo and to "a vague hope" that was "animating" local Jews when spring arrived in 1799. In the third person, he wrote (1819): “News was circulating among them that, after taking Acre, Napoleon would present himself in Jerusalem where he would re-establish the temple of Solomon.” What Napoleon himself had probably been thinking back in 1799 was perhaps revealed more clearly in Paris in the year following his return from the Mideast. As First Consul of the Republic, he told the Council of State (August 16, 1800): "If I governed a nation of Jews, I would re-establish the temple of Solomon." Napoleon had there been making a broader point about governing to please the majority as "the way to recognize the sovereignty of the people." Thus, in this important democratic context, he chose to rhetorically offer posterity (alongside three other examples) the startling hypothesis of a majority Jewish country centered on the Temple in Jerusalem. 18.Decree of May 30, 1806 (Adapted from translation of Google Translate) https://www.napoleon.org/histoire-des-2-empires/articles/document-decret-imperial-n-1-631-du-30-mai-1806/ On the account which has been given to us that in several northern departments of our Empire, some Jews, exercising no other profession than that of usury, have, by the accumulation of the most immoderate interests, put many farmers from these countries in a state of great distress; We thought that we should come to the aid of those of our subjects whom an unjust greed would have reduced to these unfortunate extremes; These circumstances have at the same time made known to us how urgent it is to revive, among those who profess the Jewish religion in the countries subject to our obedience, the sentiments of civil morality, which unfortunately have been amortized in too many of them by the state of abasement in which they have languished for a long time, a condition which it does not enter into our intentions of maintaining or renewing; For the accomplishment of this purpose, we have resolved to gather in an assembly the first of the Jews… Art. 1. For one year, from the date of the present decree, all executions of judgments or contracts, other than by simple acts of preservation, shall be suspended against non-merchant farmers of the departments of Saar, Roer, Mont- Thunder, Upper and Lower Rhine, Rhine-and-Moselle, Moselle, and Vosges, when the titles against these farmers were granted by them to Jews. 19. Jacob Katz, Out of the Ghetto pg. 140 Lending an ear to the complaints of Alsatians that Jews still clung to the old attitudes in spite of their new status as citizens, Napoleon decided to tackle the problem at the root. He expected the Jewish population to adapt themselves to their new situation, to give up their unique institutions such as rabbinical jurisdiction, and to be ready for amalgamation with their environment even to the point of intermarriage. This led him to convene an assembly of Jewish notables from France, Italy, and French-occupied western Germany. Here laymen and rabbis discussed the issues put to them in the form of twelve questions on behalf of the emperor… In the course of the deliberations Napoleon realized that whatever the decisions of the assembly, they would not be binding for the Jews unless they were sanctioned by a purely religious authority. This gave rise to the idea of calling a Sanhedrin consisting of religious leaders and rabbis. The assembly, however, turned out to be a rather conservative body as far as its rabbinical members went and they alone counted in terms of religious authority. 20. Prof. Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, Napoleon, French Jews and the Idea of Regeneration When he called the Assembly’s successor body, the Sanhedrin, in 1807, Napoleon offered further instructions about the kind of regeneration he expected, and the special measures he now planned for the Jews. These included ten-year restrictions on money-lending; as well as a requirement to local governments that, for every two marriages between Jews that they authorized, a third needed to be a Jewish-Christian intermarriage. 21. The 12 Questions, https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/articles/napoleon-and-the-jews/ 1 Is it lawful for Jews to marry more than one wife? 2 Is divorce permitted by the Jewish religion? 3 Can a Jewess marry a Christian, or a Christian woman a Jew? Or does the law only allow Jews to marry amongst themselves? 4 Do Jews regard Frenchmen as brethren or strangers? 5 In any case, what duties does their law prescribe to Jews towards Frenchmen who are not of the Jewish religion? 6 Do Jews who were born in France, and who have the legal status of French citizens, regard France as their fatherland? Is it their duty to defend it, to obey its laws, and to accommodate themselves to all the provisions of the Civil Code? 7 Who nominates Rabbis? 8 What police jurisdiction do the Rabbis exercise over the Jews? What kind of police magistracy do they recognise among themselves? 9 Are the forms of election and jurisdiction of the police magistrates laid down by the Jewish law, or merely consecrated by custom? 10 Are there any professions prohibited by Jewish law? 11 Does the law forbid Jews to practise usury in dealing with their brethren? 12 Does it forbid or does it allow them to practice usury in dealing with strangers? 22. The decree of March 17, 1808, establishing the Consistory https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/articles/napoleon-and-the-jews/ A synagogue and a consistory were to be established in each département containing at least two thousand Jews, or in an ensemble of départements united so as to make at least two thousand Jews. Each consistory was to be headed by a Chief Rabbi, assisted by another Rabbi and three lay people, elected by 25 Jewish Notables approved by the authorities. The consistory had also to be approved by the authorities. Rabbis were not to be paid by the state. A Central Consistory was to be sited in Paris, comprising three Rabbis, taken from amongst the Chief Rabbis of the departmental consistories, and two other Jews. The consistories were to be responsible for enforcing the regulations, verifying that the Rabbis taught religion in accordance with the doctrinal decisions of the Great Sanhedrin, supervising the proper management of synagogues, and communicating the number of Jewish conscripts to the authorities. The salaries of the Rabbis of the Central Consistory (6,000 francs) and the Chief Rabbis of the departmental consistories (3,000 francs) were to be found by the Jewish community. 23. The Infamous Decree, March 17, 1808 (Google Translate) https://www.napoleon.org/histoire-des-2-empires/articles/document-decret-imperial-n-3210-du-17-mars-1808- concernant-les-juifs/ (7) From now on, and as of July 1st, no Jew will be able to engage in any trade, commerce or traffic of any kind, without having received, for this purpose, a patent from the prefect of the department, which will be granted only precise information. and that on a certificate, 1. ° of the municipal council, noting that said Jew has engaged neither usury nor illicit traffic; 2. ° the consistory of the synagogue in the district in which he lives, attesting to his good conduct and probity… (16) No Jew, not presently domiciled in our department of Upper and Lower Rhine, will henceforth be allowed to take up residence there. No Jew, not presently domiciled, will be allowed to take up residence in the other departments of our Empire, except in the case where there is the acquisition of a rural property and will be engaged in agriculture … (17) The Jewish population in our departments will not be allowed to provide replacements for conscription; consequently, every Jewish conscript will be subject to personal service. (18) The provisions contained in the present decree shall have their execution for ten years, hoping that at the expiration of this period, and by the effect of the various measures taken with regard to the Jews, there will be no longer any difference between them and the other citizens of our Empire; except, nevertheless, if hope was deceived, to prolong the execution for such time as it will be considered suitable. (19) Jews in Bordeaux, and in the departments of Gironde and Landes, which have not given rise to any complaint, and who do not engage in illicit traffic, are not included in the provisions of this Decree. Napoleon’s Motivations 24.Dr. Allen Hertz, Jews, Napoleon, and the Ottoman Empire: The 1797-1799 Proclamations to the Jews For example, a printing press was dispatched to the Ionian island of Corfu. There, the French printed a proclamation in Greek and Italian which announced that "with the establishment of a press, those kings still sitting on their shaky thrones tremble, their iron yoke has been lifted from off the necks of the people by revolution." That same press was soon used to print, significantly in Italian, the lectures (discorsi) delivered in the synagogue on Corfu. There, local Jews were major beneficiaries of the new revolutionary regime… Despite more than two hundred years of friendship between France and the Ottoman Empire, Napoleon had little respect for the Sultan's sovereignty. Starting in 1797, he repeatedly aimed revolutionary propaganda at the subject Peoples of the entire Ottoman Empire… From 1797 the Turks were fully alive to the modern political meaning of all those many French revolutionary references to the glories of ancient Greece. On either side, contemporary diplomatic correspondence and other sources show that the Turks then knew that Napoleon and his local commanders were publishing inflammatory proclamations and dispatching letters and subversive emissaries to spark revolt against the Sultan on the Aegean islands, and in Morea and Rumelia. That last Balkan province notably included the heavily Jewish city of Salonika. But, there were other important Jewish communities in all three of the cited regions, and also in Constantinople and in so many other places of the Ottoman Empire. The Foreign Minister (reis-ül-küttab) and Deputy Foreign Minister (the Phanariote Grand Dragoman of the Porte) repeatedly protested to the French Embassy in Constantinople, as in late 1797 and again in June and July 1798. These Ottoman grievances were embodied in a long memorandum shared with the diplomatic corps simultaneous to Turkey's September 1798 declaration of war against France… Napoleon placed exceptional emphasis on public relations, including propaganda custom-made for various niche audiences, near and far. During his early campaigns, he was always concerned about the availability of printing presses and foreign-language typeface. For example, he repeatedly signaled urgent need for Greek and Arabic characters, the latter also useful for printing in Ottoman-Turkish. 25.Dr. Allen Hertz, Jews, Napoleon, and the Ottoman Empire: The 1797-1799 Proclamations to the Jews Despite revolutionary secularism, Napoleon took ancient Jewish history very seriously. Before sailing for Egypt (May 19, 1798), Napoleon had prepared a list of the books he wanted on board. There, he classified the Catholic Old Testament under the heading of "politics," along with some titles like the Koran and Montesquieu's De l'esprit des lois. An hour before Napoleon left Cairo for the "Syrian" campaign, he wrote to the Directory (February 10, 1799): "When you read this letter, it is possible that I might be on the ruins of the city of Solomon." Regarding the "Syrian" campaign, Napoleon reminisced (January 1813): "I constantly read Genesis when visiting the places it describes and was amazed beyond measure that they were still exactly as Moses had described them." 26. Prof. Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, Napoleon, French Jews and the Idea of Regeneration The emperor sympathized with complaints that Jews were “abusing” their fellow citizens through usury, yet he also believed in the possibility of their regeneration. Under his wise and paternal guidance, he felt, he might succeed where others had failed, regenerating Jews and cementing his glory in the annals of history. As Ronald Schechter has argued, Napoleon’s earlier liberation of Jewish ghettos in Italy had been “performances,” aimed primarily at Gentile audiences. These “dramatically staged liberations” had helped feed the myth of Napoleon as a heroic figure who freed the people of Europe from oppression. Completing their regeneration thus promised to add to the image of Napoleon as “a figure who combined the attributes of Moses, the Messiah, and indeed Gd himself.” 27. Prof. Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, Napoleon, French Jews and the Idea of Regeneration As I have argued elsewhere, in the eighteenth century, three discourses existed in Europe on the status of the Jews, three ways of thinking about their potential for integration into society. Though these terms were not used during the period, I have labeled them the “impossibilist” discourse, the “unconditionalist” discourse, and the “conditionalist” discourse. Regeneration would fall into the latter category… [T]he Revolution’s granting of citizenship had hardly silenced impossibilists, especially in Alsace. After the Revolution’s radicalization in the mid-1790s, their virulence about Jews had even increased… Yet circumstances also made pure impossibilism difficult to express. In a famous pamphlet of the time, the lawyer Louis Poujol portrayed Jews as amoral usurers whose religion authorized them to cheat and steal from non-Jews. He argued that Jews had shirked their patriotic duties and done nothing to make themselves worthy of citizenship; revoking their equality was justified until Jews demonstrated that they had changed. Yet even as the revolutionary years had discredited the idea of complete egalitarianism, so too had they made it difficult to argue that any one group was incapable of regeneration… Napoleon thus opted for a conditionalist approach to the Jews, casting himself as their great restorer. 28. Prof. Jay R. Berkovitz, The Napoleonic Sanhedrin: Halakhic Foundations and Rabbinical Legacy The range of questions brought before the Jewish assembly reveals the novelty of the Napoleonic initiative. At issue was the determination of the regime to resolve the clash between the authority of the state and the authority of religion. Twelve in all, the questions focused on marriage and divorce, attitudes toward non-Jews, civic duties, rabbinic authority, occupational restrictions, and money lending. The ultimate goal, as defined by Napoleon, was to "reconcile the beliefs of the Jews with the duties of Frenchmen, and to transform them into useful citizens, in order to remedy the evil to which many of them apply themselves to the great detriment of our subjects." Napoleon sought formal reassurance that the Jews of the empire were committed to the French civil code and to his program of broad social integration. Jewish reactions to Napoleon 29. Prof. Jay R. Berkovitz, The Napoleonic Sanhedrin: Halakhic Foundations and Rabbinical Legacy In the case of intermarriage, as in other areas as well, the decisions of the Sanhedrin varied substantially from the responses of the Assembly of Jewish Notables. As a rule, the assembly’s responses were more deliberative in tone and reflected a wider range of views than the Sanhedrin, which was predominately a rabbinic body. In its third decision the Sanhedrin stated that although a mixed marriage created civil obligations, it was, from a religious standpoint, a prohibited act and halakhically invalid. As for the highly unorthodox formulation in the first part of the assembly’s response, there is no trace of it in the doctrinal decisions of the rabbinic body. It appears to have been little more than a rhetorical ploy intended to curry favor with the Napoleonic commission, but it offered no legal dispensation from the traditional prohibition against intermarriage. The failure to notice this distinction has led historians to overstate the commonly held claim concerning the general failure of the Sanhedrin to represent the positions of Jewish law and tradition faithfully. 30. Prof. Jay R. Berkovitz, The Napoleonic Sanhedrin: Halakhic Foundations and Rabbinical Legacy Over the next decades the Sanhedrin exerted a double impact. On the one hand it aroused a new genre of criticism; French Jews were regularly taken to task for failing to behave according to the "noble sentiments" of loyalty to the patrie declared by the Paris assembly. Within the Jewish community the Sanhedrin was viewed as having defined the essential elements of the ideology of emancipation. 31. Prof. Meir Loewenberg, Napoleon’s Balfour Declaration There is one report that after the fall of Jaffo a delegation of Jews visited Napoleon to offer their support and to tell him that they looked upon him as their Messiah. If this report is true, it is an exception because most Palestinian Jews refused to support Napoleon. This was especially true in Acres where Jews joined the Arab and Turkish forces in defending the city against Napoleon's armies. At the head of Acre's Jewish community was Hayim Pirchi who served as finance minister to Ahmad al G'esar, pasha of Acres. Napoleon sent several messengers to Pirchi, trying to persuade him with all kinds of promises to defect to the French side. But Napoleon failed and Pirchi remained loyal to the Turks. The Jews of Jerusalem also rejected Napoleon's promises… The Arabs of Jerusalem decided to kill all Jewish residents once Napoleon's armies reached the vicinity of the city. An informer told the Rishon L'zion, Jerusalem's chief rabbi, Rabbi Yomtov Algazi, and his assistant, Rabbi Mordecai Meyuhas (who would later succeed Algazi as Rishon L'zion), about this plan. The two rabbinical leaders immediately assembled all of Jerusalem's Jews, men, women and children, at the Wailing (Western) Wall in order to demonstrate their loyalty to the Ottoman Empire and to offer prayers for the defense of Jerusalem. They prayed to the Almighty that He might save the Holy City and prevent its fall to the French. After the special prayer service at the Western Wall Rabbi Meyuhas met with the Turkish governor of Jerusalem to suggest that the city walls be strengthened and that trenches be dug in front of them. He offered Jerusalem's Jews as volunteers for this work. The city authorities accepted this offer readily and ordered all residents to report for work at the city walls. The chief rabbi, together with all of the city's Jews, was among the first to answer the city's call. The governor then asked the Jews to continue to pray for the city's welfare, but the chief rabbi assured him that the Almighty had already heard their prayers and that Napoleon would not come to Jerusalem. 32. Paul Mendes-Flohr, Jehuda Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World, pp. 124-127