https://x.com/Riley_Gaines_/status/1850827199437271098
Wait … wait … Stephen Miller wasn’t
beat down. He was allowed to speak unmolested for 5 minutes. Did NOBODY
there know he’s Jewish?
Stephen Miller’s excellent 5 minute speech.
Paul Joseph Watson - Some Cultures Are BETTER Than Others - (7:21)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBiLxwZDjb4
I watch every PJW video. I like his method and I like and agree with 99% of what he says.
(This post is NOT supposed to be about circumcision, this is an excellent video and I thought since the circumcision issue raised in the video concerned me, I would post this explanation. Please watch the video and enjoy.)
When I watched this video many years ago, I didn’t post it because the ‘Jewish’ practice of “metzitzah b’pec”.
I didn’t believe it and I thought PJW had let me down with some asinine conspiracy theory.
Finally, recently, I saw the video again and decided to do a little research.
I am not Jewish and I am not a theologian.
I know that Jewish people and other faiths believe in the practice of circumcision. I have no problem with that since I am a Christian and I have read God’s Word and He told the Jews, His people, to circumcise themselves and their children.
“This is My covenant, which ye shall keep, between Me and you and thy seed after thee: every male among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of a covenant betwixt Me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any foreigner, that is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised; and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken My covenant.”
— Genesis 17:10–14
NOTICE: It says NOTHING in the Bible about the person performing the circumcision to suck blood from the infant’s wound.
My understanding is that most cleanliness and health practices can be found in the Bible. I believe the circumcision was to prevent health, infection issues but I understand it to also be a way to prove yourself separated from ‘the world’ and follow God’s Law.
Jewish people followed God’s Law and performed circumcisions BUT nowhere that I have ever seen or heard in the Bible does it advocate ANY ritual like the ‘metzitzah b’pec’.
In a circumcision, a brit milah, “covenant of circumcision”, is the ceremony of circumcision in Judaism and Samaritanism, during which the foreskin is surgically removed.
As times passed and the Rabbi’s and the Sanhedrin became “more religious than God” (sarcasm) they made ever more and more laws to show that they were the true arbiters of God’s Law. These were the Ultra-Orthodox Jews and they are the ones who came up with the ‘metzitzah’ part of this procedure. It was mentioned in the Talmud. Forgive me if I don’t fully understand this but I believe the Talmud was the written laws that were ‘added’ to God’s Word by the Orthodox, Ultra-Orthodox, and Hassidic Jews. These laws WERE NOT God’s Laws BUT man’s laws.
The moral of this short explanation is, follow God’s Law NOT man’s religious law if you can't find it in His Word.
How does anyone explain liberal Jews?
Many books have been written about why an intelligent and accomplished people have ignored reality and remained loyal to the Democrat party.
I have consistently acknowledged there are many plausible reasons.
However, the one I consistently return to is the one Norman Podhoretz wrote about in: “Why Jews are Liberal.”
Podhoretz maintains, liberal Jews do not understand their religion and mistakenly believe their mission is described by the phrase, Tikun Olan, i.e., they were put here on Earth to better the world and politics is the substituted method by which they best accomplish this commandment.
Jews have proven, throughout history, to be accomplished in a variety of fields and endeavors but liberal Jews refuse to admit they act in ways that are destructive, not only to society but also to their fellow Jews.
I have maintained that progressives, by and large, are an unhappy lot.
This makes them susceptible to seeking/embracing change even though the solutions they adopt consistently lead to failure.
Furthermore, because they are known to be intelligent and thus, have risen to positions of success, they have had a disproportionate degree of influence.
Think of politicians of Jewish heritage such as Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, or Bernie Sanders. Think of Jewish-origin billionaire oligarchs such as George Soros, Howie Schultz, or Mark Zuckerberg; think of Jewish Hollywood icons such as Barbra Streisand and Rob Reiner. Think of a powerful union leader such as Randi Weingarten, or highly placed Cabinet officials such as Antony Blinken, Alejandro Mayorkas and Merrick Garland, and the list is endless.
Report: The Biden administration is behind an ICC plan to arrest senior Israeli officials.
As Jews wake up to the reality that the Democrat party has broken its decades’ long implied promise to protect the Jews from another Holocaust, Joe Biden may be doubling down on an effort to placate the Hamas wing of the Democrat party. According to an Israeli reporter who has highly placed contacts at the Hague, the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) is planning to arrest senior Israeli officials, something it would do only if it had the Biden administration’s permission.
Caroline Glick, who is very connected to information about the Israeli government, broke the news to English-language speakers:
Biden stabbing Netanyahu in the back.
Karim Asad Ahmad Kahn, who comes from England’s Pakistani community, is the chief prosecutor at the ICC, a position he obtained thanks to backing from the Biden administration. It is he who will allegedly issue arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials, including Netanyahu himself. The charges are presumably based upon alleged war crimes...that is, killing civilians. That Hamas placed itself among civilians, thereby turning them into military targets, apparently isn’t a war crime.
Everyone knows, of course, that the ICC, like every other European institution, is hostile to Israel. (As the old saying goes, the Europeans have never forgiven Israel for Auschwitz.) What makes the alleged upcoming arrest warrants so significant is that the ICC will be targeting Israel’s highest politicians while they are in the midst of waging a war against an enemy that is open about its intention to eliminate Israeli Jews from the face of the earth.
Even for the ICC, this is a bold move. That the ICC has the courage to make this move is allegedly because of Joe Biden:
“Regarding the intention to issue arrest warrants for senior Israelis, the sources at The Hague said that it is impossible that the chief prosecutor would have decided on such a dramatic step - in a war that is still ongoing - with very little evidence, if he had not at least gotten a “green light” from the Americans. If true, this is yet another unprecedented low in relations between Israel and the United States at a very sensitive time on the eve of the ground operation into Rafah.”
The U.S. government has blown hot and cold to Israel over the years. However, since 1973, when Richard Nixon came to Israel’s rescue during the Yom Kippur War, the American government has been mostly consistent in its support for Israel. Starting with Barack Obama, though, that support began to fade rapidly on the left. I wrote about that here* so I won’t repeat myself.
*https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/04/the_columbia_u_pogrom_and_the_jews_bad_gamble_on_the_democrats.html
Suffice it to say that the Democrats have made common cause with Islam. Each is using the other to obtain political power. When this unholy alliance finally achieves total political power, one will destroy the other. My bet is on Islam, which still recognizes biological reality, rather than on the fragile flowers in academia, the screaming drag queens and other LGBTQ+ activists, the angry black TikTokers, and the hysterical women who make up so much of the Democrat party’s current political strength in America.
Martin Fletcher has written that the situation for world Jewry is actually worse today than it was in the 1930s. That’s because in the 1930s, only Germany was on the move against the Jews (although, of course, by the 1940s, it managed to erase almost the entirety of Europe’s ancient Jewish population). It’s different, he says, in 2024:
“Today, Jews are afraid in Australia, South Africa, all over Europe, as the useful idiots march, curse and verbally and sometimes physically abuse innocent Jews, in the name of protecting Palestinians. It’s always in the name of something. As someone wrote, antisemitism is a light sleeper.”
Fletcher understates the matter because it’s even worse than that. If the Biden administration is conspiring against the Israeli government, there is no safe place in the world for Jews at all. Every nation has become Nazi Germany, including America.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/04/report_the_biden_administration_is_behind_an_icc_plan_to_arrest_senior_israeli_officials.html
Trump Says Jews Who Vote For Biden ‘Should Have Their Head Examined.’
Former President Donald Trump accused President Joe Biden of abandoning Israel on Wednesday, adding that any Jew who votes for Biden or any Democrat should “have their head examined.”
“Biden has totally lost control of the Israel situation,” Trump said to reporters ahead of a fundraiser in Atlanta, Georgia. “He has abandoned Israel, he has totally abandoned Israel, and frankly you know he’s a low-IQ individual.”
“He has no idea where he is and who he is supporting,” the former president added. “He doesn’t know if he is supporting the Palestinians but he knows one thing: he is not supporting Israel. He has abandoned Israel and any Jewish person that votes for a Democrat or votes for Biden should have their head examined.”
https://twitter.com/Osint613/status/1778098994452758945?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1778098994452758945%7Ctwgr%5E5e0fb854441d7df6b341a5b929330bed902d0619%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Ftrump-preempts-democrats-attack-on-him-regarding-abortion%3FtopStoryPosition%3D5
Biden criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called for a six to eight-week ceasefire in Gaza, without mentioning a deal to free hostages in an interview aired Tuesday with Univision.
“What I’m calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into the country,” Biden said. “I’ve spoken with everyone from the Saudis to the Jordanians to the Egyptians. They’re prepared to move in.”
A senior White House Official said there is no change to the president’s position and that the administration is calling for a ceasefire that includes a hostage deal, according to the Times of Israel.
“Any Jewish person that votes for Biden does not love Israel and frankly, should be spoken to,” Trump said according to the Times of Israel. “How a Jewish person can vote for Biden or a Democrat because they are on the side 100% of the Palestinians”
“Frankly, it’s incredible that historically Jewish people vote for Democrats. I don’t understand that,” he added. “Maybe it’s just a bad habit when you vote for a Democrat, but I don’t know how anybody that is Jewish votes for a Democrat.”
In an interview with Israel Hayom last month, Trump said he supported Israel’s war against Hamas, calling the October 7 massacre “one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen,” and said “only a fool” would not respond the way Israel did, Jewish News Syndicate reported.
He added that Israel needs to “finish up” the war and “get it done.”
“And I will say, Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support, you have to finish up, you have to get the job done,” he said. “And you have to get on to peace, to get on to a normal life for Israel, and for everybody else.”
Trump, who was the broker of the Abraham Accords to bring more peace to the Middle East, met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who has not yet signed onto the accords, according to the New York Times. Saudi Arabia was expected to follow the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco in the peace agreements until Biden was reelected and progress ceased.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-jews-who-vote-for-biden-should-have-their-head-examined?topStoryPosition=3
On This Date In History
On March 31,1492, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castille issued the Alhambra Decree, mandating that all Jews be expelled from Spain after conquering the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, finally freeing Spain from Muslim rule after nearly 800 years. The monarchs marriage and conquests cemented Spain as a unified kingdom.
In 1478, Ferdinand and Isabella had instituted the Inquisition, an effort by Spanish clergy rid to the country of heretics. Pogroms, individual acts of violence against Jews, and anti-Semitic laws had been features of Catholic Spain for over a century before the Alhambra Order, causing deaths and conversions that greatly reduced Spain’s Jewish population. Having already forced much of Spain’s Jewish population to convert, the Church now set about rooting out those suspected of practicing Judaism in secret, oftentimes by extremely violent methods. Tomas de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, is said to have petitioned the monarchs to expel all Jews for years before they finally issued the order on March 31, 1492.
The results were catastrophic. Jews were given until the end of July to leave the country, resulting in the hasty selling of much of their land and possessions to Catholics at artificially low prices. Many converted in order to remain in Spain, with some continuing to practice their religion in secret and others assimilating into Catholicism. Estimation is difficult, but modern historians now believe around 40,000 Jews emigrated, with older estimates putting the number at several hundred thousand. Many died trying to reach safety, and in some cases it is reported that refugees paid for passage to other countries only to be thrown overboard by Spanish captains. While the Ottoman Empire welcomed the influx of Spanish Jews, many other nations in Europe treated them as cruelly as the Spaniards, though Portugal was a popular destination, its rulers issued a similar decree five years later.
Communities established by Spanish Jews, known as Sephardim in Hebrew, formed the foundation of the Sephardic communities that now make up a significant percentage of the world’s Jewish population. The year of the Alhambra Decree was also the year that Christopher Columbus, sailing for Spain, “discovered” the Americas, and thus it marks the beginning of two centuries of Spanish efforts to force its Catholicism on its substantial colonial holdings. Spain has never had a significant Jewish population since; current estimates put the Jewish population of Spain at lower than .2 percent. Spain formally revoked the Alhambra decree in 1968, and in the early 2000s both Spain and Portugal granted Sephardic Jews the right to claim citizenship of the countries that expelled their ancestors 500 years before.
REPORT: Obama Quietly Intervened and Pushed Harvard to Keep Anti-Semitic Plagiarist President Claudine Gay.
Obama was a law student at Harvard, so its easy to see how this issue would be personal to him.
Claudine Gay’s academic works continue to be scrutinized for acts of plagiarism and the list of examples just keeps growing, but Obama doesn’t seem to have a problem with that.
The New York Post reports:
Obama secretly pushed Harvard to keep president Claudine Gay despite campus antisemitism, plagiarism controversies: report
Former President Barack Obama has secretly lobbied Harvard University officials to stick by embattled President Claudine Gay as she faces pressure to resign for giving cover to antisemitism on campus and for committing plagiarism.
Obama, 62, a 1991 graduate of Harvard’s law school, privately urged the university to let Gay remain in office after she testified Dec. 5 before the House Education and Workforce Committee that calls for the genocide of Jews may be permissible under the school’s code of conduct, depending on “context,” according to a report out Friday.
“It sounded like people were being asked to close ranks to keep the broader administration stable — including its composition,” a source told Jewish Insider of the former president’s clandestine effort.
The report did not say whether that effort had continued after Gay’s scholarship was called into question following her testimony for dozens of instances of alleged plagiarism.
In case anyone has forgotten, Obama has had his own issues with plagiarism.
CBS News reported in 2008:
Obama Accused Of Plagiarism In Speech
Presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has come under scrutiny for a speech he gave Saturday in Milwaukee and its similarities to a speech by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.
The website www.youtube.com has a video showing the similarities of the two speeches, and both campaigns, Obama’s and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s, D-N.Y., have responded to the accusations of plagiarism.
Obama’s speech Saturday sounded similar to a speech given by Patrick in his 2006 campaign for governor, according to the video.
“Don’t tell me words don’t matter! ‘I have a dream.’ Just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ Just words. ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words, just speeches,” Obama said in his speech.
Patrick used many of the same phrases in his speech.
David Axelrod managed the political campaigns of both Deval Patrick and Obama so it’s obvious how that happened. They even had similar campaign slogans. Obama’s was ‘Yes We Can’ and Deval Patrick’s was ‘Together We can.’
(black) Man Charged In Murder Of (White Female) Detroit Synagogue Leader.
A Detroit man has been charged in connection to the fatal stabbing of synagogue leader Samantha Woll in October, officials announced on Wednesday.
Michael Jackson-Bolanos, 28, faces offenses for homicide-felony murder and home invasion, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said during a press conference. He was also charged for lying to an officer investigating larcenies or attempted thefts from motor vehicles on the day of Woll’s death, she added.
The charges come after police announced the arrest of a person of interest on Sunday, roughly two months after the killing. Worthy said Jackson-Bolanos was appearing for an arraignment as she spoke. She emphasized that certain details would come out in court, including when a reporter asked if Jackson-Bolanos acted alone.
Woll, the 40-year-old president of Isaac Agree Downtown Detroit Synagogue, was found stabbed outside her home on the morning of October 21 and pronounced dead at the scene, according to authorities. She was killed at a time of increased concerns for the safety of Jewish people in the United States and abroad as Israel went to war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip after the group launched terrorist attacks on Israeli soil on October 7.
Worthy said there were “no facts to suggest that this defendant knew Ms. Woll and there are certainly no facts to suggest that this was a hate crime.” He also is suspected to have killed Woll during an attempted break-in at her home and a medical examiner determined Woll died of “multiple sharp force wounds with a straight-edge cutting instrument.” The manner of death was homicide, she added.
An attorney for Jackson-Bolanos maintained his client’s innocence, saying, “I think he was just a victim of circumstance and not an individual who perpetrated this crime,” according to the Detroit Free Press.
From the look of this mug shot, the IQ of the barbarian may have something to do with the defense's case.
Netanyahu Opposes Biden: No Way Palestinian Authority Runs Gaza Again.
JERUSALEM, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his opposition Saturday night to a proposal by U.S. President Joe Biden to restore control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority (PA) once Hamas is removed from power and destroyed.
On Saturday, Biden published an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he supported Israel, though once again joining the Israeli cause to the Ukrainian one, putting Hamas and Russia in the same category as enemies of the United States.
Biden also reiterated his support for a “two-state solution” as the only answer to the conflict, and added: “As we strive for peace, Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority, as we all work toward a two-state solution.”
However, Netanyahu emphatically rejected that idea.
“In Gaza, after the destruction of Hamas, and for a long time thereafter, there will not be a regime that encourages terror, that teaches terror, that funds terror — that also indoctrinates about the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews — this will not be,” Netanyahu vowed at a press conference on Saturday night.
He was alluding to the PA’s record of encouraging terror, including the practice of “pay-to-slay,” in which the PA provides stipends to terrorists in Israeli prisons, and pensions to the families of terrorists killed by Israel.
Despite the loss of U.S. aid under the Taylor Force Act, which President Donald Trump signed in 2018 to prohibit taxpayer dollars from funding the PA as long as it continues “pay-to-slay,” the PA has not changed its policy.
The PA also continues naming public parks and monuments after terrorists, and Palestinian educational materials are frequently filled with anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda.
The PA ran Gaza from 1994 to 2007, when it was ousted by Hamas in a violent coup. Rocket attacks against Israeli civilians began years before it was ousted, and especially from 2001 onwards, despite a unilateral withdrawal of Israeli soldiers and civilians in 2005.
If Palestinians wanted Peace and Prosperity, they’d already have it.
They chose violence. Over and over again. - David Harsanyi
In 2005, Palestinian Arabs were given autonomy over the Gaza Strip for the first time in their history. To make it happen, the Israeli government forcibly removed thousands of Israelis from the area. Without military protection, Jews would be murdered by Palestinians, who prefer their land Judenfrei.
As Jews were being evicted from their homes, some began to dismantle the farms and hothouses they’d built, reluctant to hand over years of hard work. In the name of peace, however, American Jewish donors purchased the 3,000 remaining greenhouses that stood over 1,000 acres for $14 million and gave it to the Palestinian Authority, gratis. A large portion of the donations were earmarked for “crucial equipment like computerized irrigation systems” and other modern farming systems for Palestinians.
As soon as the Jews were gone, mobs of Palestinians showed up and broke windows, stole irrigation hoses, water pumps, and everything else they could get their hands on, destroying everything they could, as “police” stood by and watched. This happened before Hamas came to power. Before any blockades.
By 2007, the unity government between the PLO and Hamas had fallen apart after the latter won a landslide election in 2006 and began defenestrating its political opponents. It was a warning. There has not been a real election in the West Bank since. And it’s a good thing because Islamists would surely grab power there as they had in Gaza. Joe Biden likes to say that Hamas doesn’t speak for Palestinians, but the ugly truth is that Hamas is a far better ambassador of the Palestinian people than the “moderate” Fatah party, which we prop up with billions of dollars.
I thought about all this when reading Sen. Rand Paul’s hopelessly naïve piece in The Federalist today. Paul contends that peace between Israel and Arabs is contingent on promised “prosperity” for Palestinians. He mentions the word “prosperity” eight times, in fact, contending that “non-Hamas Palestinians must hear a message of hope of what could come if they renounced violence.” The libertarian senator then unsheathes this pollyannaish suggestion: “[I]nstead of dropping leaflets to a million Palestinians to flee or be bombed, perhaps we might consider leaflets announcing the prosperity and benefits if they choose a government that recognizes Israel and renounces violence.”
Palestinians have been hearing this message nonstop since 1948 — if not since the 1920s. Many of the Arabs who immigrated to British Palestine from Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere were lured by the promise of the “prosperity” that was being created by Jewish newcomers. Once there, fueled by the propaganda and lies of their leaders, they created an intractable situation. Before there were any “open-aired prisons” or “occupied territories,” there was terrorism and massacres of Jews. And, still, when offered a state in 1948, with the promise of self-determination and prosperity, they rejected it and tried to annihilate the region’s Jews.
Paul’s belief that Palestinians are itching for “prosperity” is reminiscent of the neocons’ belief that the Islamic world was longing for Western-style “democracy.” No doubt, many innocent civilians are interested in peace and safety. But for most, the frame of thinking about the world and the logic employed to make sense of it are on a different wavelength. If they weren’t, Palestinians would have built a prosperous nation a long time ago. They had every chance to do it.
Palestinian statehood was on the table after the 1967 and 1973 wars, and in the early 1990s and the early 2000s, and a bunch of times in between. It was offered in exchange for the recognition of Israel and the renouncement of violence. Just as it didn’t happen then, it can’t happen now. No Palestinian leader can agree to a deal on statehood because they would surely be deposed and murdered. The Palestinians’ self-destructive embrace of the “right to return” (an idea tied to the historical myth of “Nakba”) and/or Islamist fundamentalism makes peace virtually impossible.
But what’s stopped the Arabs of Gaza or the “West Bank” from achieving prosperity? There are hundreds of stateless minorities in the world. Very few turn to violence. Many thrive. The Jews and Arabs lived in similarly desolate places before the partition, but in the decades since, Israel’s GDP per capita has risen to be on par with South Korea, Spain, and France. Jordan is on par with El Salvador, Namibia. Egypt is on par with Mongolia and Gabon. Is that also the fault of Zionists?
Indeed, like any free nation, Israel makes mistakes, but the idea that it stands in the way of Palestinian success due to bigotry or colonialist intentions or a racial grudge is a paranoiac conspiracy spread by Middle East leaders and Western intellectuals. They would like nothing more than a peaceful neighbor.
Every Israeli restriction on Gazans has been implemented as a reaction to violence by Gazans. When you send Gaza concrete, they don’t build skyscrapers, they build tunnels and military bases under hospitals. They tear down streetlight poles and dig up water pipes to make casements for rockets. Tens of thousands of them. When you allow shipments of necessities, they smuggle in explosives and weapons from Iran.
Gazans are unwilling to build the basic infrastructure necessary for themselves despite receiving hundreds of millions in aid. Israel can only cut power off in Gaza because Israeli power companies provide that electricity (often for free.) The same goes for clean water. Gaza water comes through pipelines from Israeli desalination plants. The notion that Israel is engaged in “genocide,” as you can see, is preposterous in every conceivable way.
Perhaps the only way to implement hope and “prosperity” for the Palestinians is to tighten the occupation of Gaza and create basic civic institutions that make it possible. If, as many Democrats claim, Hamas is not the true agent of the Palestinian people then Israel would be liberating them from a violent cult. But, of course, this would be met with condemnation from the world — not to mention it would mean Israel putting its own citizens’ lives in danger.
Rather, Israel is asked to create an independent state for a people who are incapable of living in peace with Jews, or anyone else. A Gazan nation would be a place where Iran sends deadlier missiles and, one day, nuclear weapons. At this point, acquiescing to any independent Palestinian state would be suicide for the Jewish state. No responsible nation would do it. And a leaflet isn’t going to change anything.
On This Date In History
On November 16, 1907, Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory collectively enter the United States as Oklahoma, the 46th state.
Oklahoma, with a name derived from the Choctaw Indian words okla, meaning “people,” and humma, meaning “red,” has a history of human occupation dating back 15,000 years. The first Europeans to visit the region were Spanish explorers in the 16th century, and in the 18th century the Spanish and French struggled for control of the territory. The United States acquired Oklahoma from France in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase.
After the War of 1812, the U.S. government decided to remove Indian tribes from the settled eastern lands of the United States and move them west to the unsettled lands of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. In 1828, Congress reserved Oklahoma for Indians and in 1834 formally ceded it to five southeastern tribes as Indian Territory. Many Cherokees refused to abandon their homes east of the Mississippi, and so the U.S. Army moved them west in a forced march known as the “Trail of Tears.” The uprooted tribes joined Plains Indians that had long occupied the area, and Indian nations with fixed boundaries and separate governments were established in the region.
During the American Civil War, most tribes in Indian Territory supported the South. With the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865, the territory was placed under U.S. military rule. White cattlemen and settlers began to covet the virgin ranges of Oklahoma, and after the arrival of the railroad in the 1870s, illegal white incursion into Indian Territory flourished. Most of these “Boomers” were expelled, but pressure continued until the federal government agreed in 1889 to open two million acres in central Oklahoma for white settlement. At noon on April 22, 1889, a pistol shot signaled the opening of the new land, and tens of thousands of people rushed to stake claims. Those who had already made illegal entry to beat the starting gun were called “Sooners,” hence Oklahoma’s state nickname. The following year, the region was divided into Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory.
In 1907, Congress decided to admit Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory into the Union as a single state. Representatives of the two territories drafted a constitution, and on September 17, 1907, it was approved by voters of the two territories. On November 16, Oklahoma was welcomed into the United States by President Theodore Roosevelt.
Oklahoma initially prospered as an agricultural state, but the drought years of the 1930s made the state part of the Dust Bowl. During the Depression, poor tenant farmers known as “Okies” were forced to travel west seeking better opportunities. In the 1940s, prosperity returned to Oklahoma, and oil production brought a major economic boom in the 1970s.
On November 16, 1941, Joseph Goebbels publishes in the German magazine Das Reich that “The Jews wanted the war, and now they have it”, referring to the Nazi propaganda scheme to shift the blame for the world war onto European Jews, thereby giving the Nazis a rationalization for the so-called Final Solution.
Just two days earlier, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, having read more than a dozen decoded messages from German police which betrayed the atrocities to which European Jews were being subjected, had written in a letter to the Jewish Chronicle that “The Jew bore the brunt of the Nazis’ first onslaught upon the citadels of freedom and human dignity… He has not allowed it to break his spirit: he has never lost the will to resist.” And active Jewish resistance was increasing, especially in the USSR, where Jews were joining partisans in fighting the German incursions into Russian territory.
But it was proving too little too late, as Goebbels, Himmler, and the rest of Hitler’s henchmen carried out the “elimination of the Jews,” using propaganda and anti-Bolshevik rhetoric to infuse SS soldiers with enthusiasm for their work. As Goebbels wrote in Das Reich: “[T]he prophecy which the Fuhrer made…that should international finance Jewry succeed in plunging the nations into a world war once again, the result would not be the Bolshevization of the world…but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe. We are in the midst of that process…Compassion or regret are entirely out of place here.”
On November 16, 1945, in a move that stirs up some controversy, as part of "Operation Paperclip," the United States ships 88 German scientists to America to assist the nation in its production of rocket technology. Most of these men had served under the Nazi regime and critics in the United States questioned the morality of placing them in the service of America. Nevertheless, the U.S. government, desperate to acquire the scientific know-how that had produced the terrifying and destructive V-1 and V-2 rockets for Germany during WWII, and fearful that the Russians were also utilizing captured German scientists for the same end, welcomed the men with open arms.
Realizing that the importation of scientists who had so recently worked for the Nazi regime so hated by Americans was a delicate public relations situation, the U.S. military cloaked the operation in secrecy. In announcing the plan, a military spokesman merely indicated that some German scientists who had worked on rocket development had “volunteered” to come to the United States and work for a “very moderate salary.” The voluntary nature of the scheme was somewhat undercut by the admission that the scientists were in “protective custody.”
Upon their arrival in the United States on November 16, newsmen and photographers were not allowed to interview or photograph the newcomers. A few days later, a source in Sweden claimed that the scientists were members of the Nazi team at Peenemeunde where the V-weapons had been produced. The U.S. government continued to remain somewhat vague about the situation, stating only that “certain outstanding German scientists and technicians” were being imported in order to “take full advantage of these significant developments, which are deemed vital to our national security.” The situation pointed out one of the many ironies connected with the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union, once allies against Germany and the Nazi regime during World War II, were now in a fierce contest to acquire the best and brightest scientists who had helped arm the German forces in order to construct weapons systems to threaten each other.
On November 16, 1776, Hessian Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen and a force of 3,000 Hessian mercenaries and 5,000 Redcoats lay siege to Fort Washington at the northern end and highest point of Manhattan Island.
Throughout the morning, Knyphausen met stiff resistance from the Patriot riflemen inside the fort, but by afternoon, the Patriots were overwhelmed, and the garrison commander, Colonel Robert Magaw, surrendered. Nearly 3,000 Patriots were taken prisoner, and valuable ammunition and supplies were lost to the Hessians. The prisoners faced a particularly grim fate: Many later died from deprivation and disease aboard British prison ships anchored in New York Harbor.
Among the 53 dead and 96 wounded Patriots were John and Margaret Corbin of Virginia. When John died in action, his wife Margaret took over his cannon, cleaning, loading and firing the gun until she too was severely wounded. The first woman known to have fought for the Continental Army, Margaret survived, but lost the use of her left arm.
Two weeks earlier, one of Magaw’s officers, William Demont, had deserted the Fifth Pennsylvania Battalion and given British intelligence agents information about the Patriot defense of New York, including details about the location and defense of Fort Washington. Demont was the first traitor to the Patriot cause, and his treason contributed significantly to Knyphausen’s victory.
Fort Washington stood at the current location of Bennett Park in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, near the George Washington Bridge, at the corner of Fort Washington Avenue and 183rd Street. Fort Washington Park and Fort Washington Point lay beneath the site along the Hudson River.
