Ratsach Ratsach Ratsach 2011

On June 6, 1967 the Israeli Air Force launched a pre-emptive strike or sneak attack against the airfields of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. This Pearl Harbor attack caught the Arab MIG fighters and Russian bombers on the ground. Having won air superiority the Zionist Army destroyed the massed tank forces of the UAR and within 6 days a ceasefire was declared by the warring factions.

The West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem were occupied by the victors. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes to escape the burned earth tactics of their new overlords. June 6 is a day of infamy for the native of these seized lands and the exiles call this day 'an-Naksah' or 'The Debacle'.

The Israelis have defeated every effort by the Palestinians to attain nationhood. Hijackings foiled by Mossad. Bombing campaigns condemned by the world. The PLO crushed into exile by the Lebanese incursion. The infatidah minimalized by western press. Gaza turned into a ghetto and the West Bank chopped to pieces by Jewish settlements.

Any protests against the Zionists are met with accusations of anti-Semiticism, even though the Arabs are also sons and daughters of Shem.

Not that I believed in the Bible; Old or New.

But I do believe in justice and yesterday Palestinian protesters attempted to awake the world by assailing the security fences in the Golan Heights. The Israeli command responded by warning the hundreds of unarmed men and boys to turn back from the border. Tear gas was fired from the patrol road. The protesters persisted in their plan to fly flags to mark the Day of Infamy.

Someone in the Israeli High Command gave the order to clear the fields with live fire. The dead and wounded bled on the embattled earth. People in America were more concerned with a congressman's sexting to a young girl.

Drudgereport.com filed the following reports; Israel sees Syrian hand in Golan clashes, 23 dead...

REPORT: Protesters paid $1,000 to riot along border.

The BBC soft-pedaled the confrontation by saying 'tear gas has been used to clear protesters'.

The US State Department said that 'it was troubled by the loss of life'.

No signs of condemnation.

Wankers.

Free Palestine.

To view the incident please go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7YHLKpeLZY&feature=relmfu

Israel has bought ads against Palestine on Youtube.

Youtube has trivialized the shootings by headlining the banner with 'dog surfing in California'.

Fuck the rich.

No Silent Night - Bethelem 2023

Yesterday the IDF pounded Gaza with bombs and artillery, killing scores of civilians and wounding hundreds. Their national holocaust soul demands retribution for Hamas' October 7 attack and their revenge has not be an eye for an eye. Not on Yom Kippur. Not on Hanukkah. Not on Christmas. Extermination of the Palestinian has been the only goal for Israel. Hamas, men, women, children. They have forced their fellow Semites to the edge of the Negev to march everyone into the desert as the Turks visited on the Armenians. From the river to the sea, Israel will be free of anyone, but Jews. Many of my Jewish friends see this as the only course. Extermination once and all. Americans remain silent on the subject. The Press only see one-side. Zionism supreme. Silence is the truth. But not for me. And not for others. We believe in peace, but not at the price demanded by Netanyahu and his fascist ministers.

No Christmas too.

Never Saying Sorry

More than three thousand years ago the Israelites emerged from their nomadic existence and established the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The Asssyrians and later the Babylonians depopulated the lands west of the River Jordan and the Romans completed the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah in two devastating wars and the Jews were set out across the world throughout the centuries until after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, when the British sought to create a Jewish homeland, disregarding the local Arab, Christian, and Jewish inhabitants. The Zionist were granted two-thirds on the land with the 1948 UN approval of a Jewish State.

Since then the apartheid nation has seized more and more land from the Palestinians without ever apologizing or atoning for this crime against a people. Not a single Arab served in the concentration camps. Israelis proudly declared their victories as acts of Yaweh, instead of crediting the West for distablishing a region to creat havoc in the Middle East.

Yom Kippur is one of the holiest days in the Jewish religious calendar.

The day of atonement.

The only Jew I know who is penitant for his tribe's neo-Nazi treatment of the original inhabitants of the Levant is Professor Berthell Ollman, who once wrote a brilliant letter of resignation from the Jewish people for their Zionist policies.Shamen on their tribe.

One day peace, same for Ireland, Tibet, and so many people across this world.

Fuck your Shalom.

Injustice for one is injustice for all.

I don't ever expect the Jews to ever say their sorry.

So feh to Yom Jippur and shamen to the people of Yshim.

Massacre of the Innocents

The Massacre of the Innocents or Childermas biblically occured when King Herod ordered the killing of all males under the age of two in the area surrounding Bethlehem three days after the birth of Jesus. This episode only appeared in St. Mark's Gospel the earliest of the New Testament books and has been dated by Christian scholars to have been written in Rome for gentiles in 70 CE. There are no corroborating mentions of this event by any other history of that time.

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

— Matthew 2:16

A much later account placed the slaughter in Syria. Bidy count 16000.

Emperor Augustus upon hearing of the infanticide supposedly said, "It's better to be Herod's pig than his son."

Massacres of children occur twice in the Old and New Testaments.

Historically infants have not fared well and now in Gaza thousands of chlidren under the age of two are two days away from starving to death as Azrael blockades any and all food supplies into the battered enclave. The IDF announced nine food trucks had entered the Gaza ghetto. None supplied the starving with nourishment. Azrael's PM Nteanyahu has declared that Gaza will be depopulated regardless of world opinion, since Zion had the backing of the Maddogs of MAGA.

Never again has been abandoned by the Jews.

October 6 shook their safeness.

Nowhere is safe and the IDF is fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, and threatens to attack Iran to finally harvest their holocaust revenge on the Palestinian people, since Germans were protected by the Allies at the end if the 3rd Reich.

Azrael wants to exterminate Gaza, but as the Nazis learned it is difficult to wipe out a people. The British failed in Ireland. The Turks in Armenia. The Hutu against the Tutsi. The Khmer Rouge against their own people. The USA against the First People. Azrael might succeed in Gaza, but not against all Palestinians. Their Diaspora shall save them as had fleeing Judah saved the Hebrews after the Fall of Jerusalem. People remain people and one day they shall be free.

From the river to the sea one day.

$55 Million For Rubbers In Gaza

The other day the Orange Messiah signed an executive order to cut all finances to US AID, the principal U.S. agency to offering assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms according to the website.

"I want to shut it down."

The only exceptions were Zion and Kemet aka Egypt. Billions and billions. Palestine no longer exists for Trump, who has asked surrounding countries to absorb the 1.8 million from Gaza.

"I want to end Palestine."

Prior to October 7, 2023 the population of the Gaza Strip was 2.4 million. The MAGA leader's math means that Zion has killed over 600,000 people in its war against Hamas, the militant force of the Strip.

Zionist supporters have told me, "They're cockroaches. We have to exterminate them."

Palestine and the Arab nations were the only safe havens for Jews during the reign of the Thousand Year Reich.

"Not a single Arab worked the death camps of Buchenwald and Treblinka. It was Germans and yet you buy BMWs and Benzs."

"They build good cars." I heard that answer from many of them.

"Shame. I'm Irish. We will never forgive the British for their stealing Eire for eight-hundred years." Of course the Irish watch British TV and buy British. Everyone practices hypocrisy at their own pace.

Back to US Aid.

A fellow American complained to me that US AID provided $50 million in condoms to the Palestinians after hearing President Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt announced that Trump had prevented a “preposterous waste of taxpayer money.” Trump’s team, she said, used the president’s pause on foreign aid to thwart a plan in which “there was about to be $50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza.”

None of this was true.

The Guardian on Tuesday printed that the only Middle East contraceptives provided or funded by USAID during that three-year period went to the country of Jordan in fiscal 2023. This was “a small order of injectables and progestin-only contraceptive pills” totaling about $46,000.

As always whoever says it first is the truth for MAGA devotees.

An Iraqi Christian friend complained about the condoms' expenditure.

I defended US AID by saying, "In 1837 the British invaded Afghanistan to replace Emir Dost Mohammad Khan with the former King Shah Shujah as a more pro-Raj king and counterbalance the Russians in the Great Game. The Afghans weren't happy with this arrangement, but business was good at first, but the greed of the British led to higher prices in the Kabul market. Te situation worsened when in 1841 the East India Company's first political officer William Hay Macnaghten cut subsidies to the Ghazi tribe controlling the Khyber Pass and they joined the Jihad. How many of the 8000 East India troops escaped from Kabul?"

My Iraqi friend had no idea.

"Use one hand."

"Five?"

"One."

A surgeon, William Brydon.

"People around the world don't hate Americans. They hate America for the Eternal War. US AID helps millions of people all across the globe. I have traveled and seen the benefits and # 1 is that people don't hate Americans, most of whom have only visited one foreign country. New York. So fuck Donald Trump. Fuck MAGA. The 2024 election was stolen. I don't have to explain." I cut off any further discussion by offering garlic onion potato chips. Lay's, because potato chips are the modern manna for Americans. Crunchy, salty, and only $5 a bag. $7 billion a year. Now that's waste, but fat bald American males, a separate gender of male, love potato chips as much as they loved Donald Trump. Their fat bald Messiah.

Palestine Then

During the Great War the French and British sliced up the Ottoman Empire without any interest in creating viable states according to the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement. TE Lawrence was outraged by this betrayal of the two nations' allies again the Turks. The Mandate of Palestine was given to the English who stood by when the French ousted the Arabs from Damascus and then began to implement the Balfour Declaration to create a national home for the Jewish people alongside the Palestinian Arabs, who were the vast majority of the Mandate's population. 90%.

Many of my Jewish friends claim that there never was a Palestine.

This map beg to differ.

Prior to 1948 there was no Israel after the Fall of Jerusalem. 40CE.

This conflict in reality allowed a nation and a safe zone to exist for a people, who haven't had thier own land over for almost two thousand years, but few Zionists want to accept that truth that they stole the land from the Palestinians much like Americans do not acknowledge how America was created by the extermination of the Tribes. Up to them. The truth is the truth and Yashim knows the truth.

Imagine Peace

/div>

No silent night No peace on Earth Like Lennon sang Imagine Imagine Imagine

Imagine no more them Imagine no more us Imagine only we are the world We are us. We are us.

From the mountains And the valleys To the Oceans All around the world.

No more prayers No more thoughts Only the silence of guns And Peace on Earth

From the Jordan River To the Ukraine To the wars Everywhere Nothing but peace

For the children of now For the children of the future For we who were once children Peace around the world.

Imagine It's easy if you try Lennon sang that then Let's sing it together now.

All together now All tomorrows All together now We are us All of us Like it or not.

Points of View for the Shabbat Goy 11/16/23

Since my return from the Land of the Dead, my friends have been phoning to hear my voice. They all say I sound better than before and this afternoon Big Abe called from $7th Street to say that he had seen an advertisement online for a Shabbat Goy ie that is a gentile to turn on the lights and anything else during the weekly Holy Day. I laughed and he asked, if I had any clients selling jewelry for the upcoming goyische holidays.

"Zal zeyn." Maybe was a better answer than no, which was more the truth.

"You get someone I'll cut you in."

"I get someone, I'll get the stone from you and I'll give you a piece." I had to find new customers. Most of my old clients thought I was dead and my new young friends had no interest in diamonds, since their only possessions were their cellphones and the attached apps. As for their clothing they wore sacks so they looked like beanie bag furniture.

The conversation with Benjo immediately vectored to Israel's response to the October 7 Hamas attack. It had been over a month since Hamas overwhelmed the sleeping IDF in the Negev.

"I don't want to hear any history. There are only three possibile outcomes; occupation of Gaza, genocide, or re-set."

"We have to right to defend Israel."

"Yes, but there is not one Hassidim serving in the IDF."

"I'm religious and not Hassidim." He had never lifted a gun in his life.

"I know this, but this does not affect the outcomes. The IDF had given up occupying Gaza in 2005. It was too expensive and deadly for the young troops trained only for shooting civilians."

"The IDF is the best army in the Middle East."

"Except that Shin Bet has instructed them to shoot stone throwers instead of fighting 20,000 gunman." The border troops had been stripped by the PM before October 7 and the Hamas fighters armed with ak47s and RPGs had flooded the Negev to wreak bloody havoc.

"Now the IDF will teach them a lesson."

"Zal zeyn." "Yesterday troops had occupied the al-Shifa hospital and found fifteen AK47s and computers with Arab videos of October 7.

"There were no fighters in the tunnels."

"Never again."

"The Holocaust, no. Never, but one of the solutions and Netanyahu's options is to destroy Gaza's infrastructure and march the Palestinians en masse into the desert where they will perish in the winter like how the Turks exterminated Armenians in 1915."

"What?"

Abe like most people Abe's limited view of history had been sculpted by his beliefs. Everything was colored by the Holocaust, one of the many attempts by the Gentiles to unsucccessfully exterminate the Christ Killers.

We would never do that."

"So occupation and genocide are out, leaving only reset."

"Reset?"

"Yes, start from the beginning. Before October 7, the Infatidas, the wars, back to before the Partition of Palestine and redraw the land. There are more than two people, so create one nation with rights for all people. Peace is the only outcome. Humane outcome, but no one wants peace now. So it's back to genocide."

"The wisdom of the Shabbat Goy, feh."

"I am also a sheygutz." It was a perjorative term for a goy, but also offered the connotation of a wise starker or tough guy. Before my transplant operation I had been both. "Gedenk tat." I intoned a South Shore accent with a touch of Yiddish.

"That you are."

Shalom." The word meant peace in Hebrew and Arabic. Every language has a word for peace.

I hung up hoping for a customer or a G, which meant Goyim on the street. Peace was my mission. It was an impossibility in most Americans and Zionists' eyes, but so had been my chances for life a year ago. Gut glik far ale. It was the only way to go.

Palestine Peace Train

Back in the late 19th century European Jews sought a homeland to call their own. The obvious choice was Palestine with their historical ties to the Levant dating back the End of the Exodus and an existing community of 10,000 in Jerusalem and three other cities. By 1918 the Jewish population in Palestine had expanded to 70,000 versus 320000 Muslims. Arab ownership amounted to 94% of Land.

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire allowed Britain and France to redraw the Middle East without regard to previous provincial boundaries. Straight lines defined the borders of the new nations. Not so Palestine which the British ruled under a mandate as the French oversaw Syria, whose frontier with Iraq ran as straight as a crow's flight.

Seeking to end the Diaspora Jews from Europe emigrated to their ancient kingdom in hopes of creating a homeland far from the eternal programs and antisemitism of Christians.

Jews migrated everywhere. Mostly to the Americas, but for better or worse many stayed where they were. It was home for a landless tribe.

The Holocaust visited on the Ashkenazi by the Third Reich reinforced that reality that the Jewish people were not safe in foreign countries and in 1948 the United Nations voted to create Israel, giving the Jews 60% of the land.

Over the next seventy-five years Israel practiced apartheid tactics to evict the original inhabitants from their traditional homes citing the millenia old Bible as their lease to a kingdom extinct for nearly two thousand years.

Last week Hamas said enough and struck Israel without warning from their highly vaulted Mossad and multi-million dollar security systems. Hamas launched thousands of missiles at settlements and cities across the Jewish state and over 15,000 fighters easily breached the border wall to spread death to settlers and soldiers across the desert as if this was their Tet Offensive. More like the Mongol Horde. No one was spared. Not soldiers. Not civilians nor men, women or children. The dead number over 1400 with thousands wounded, and hundreds taken hostages. The IDF was nowhere, Shin Bet having trained conscripts to be an army of occupation instead of soldiers.

The assault was finally stemmed three days later. The attackers fought to the last bullet. There were no prisoners. Hamas had nothing to lose.

Stunned Neyhayahu promised retaliation and Israel has ruthlessly adopted the Nazi tactic of leveling the Warsaw Ghetto or the push them into the sea strategy.

The world awaits worse. Young Israeli soldiers are amassing outside of Gaza. War seems to be the only course between two people who no longer believe in peace. The West Bank is also under assault by the IDF. The Two-State Plan is dead. It always has been an illusion.

There is only one sane course.

It is not war.

It is peace.

Peace between two people who don't speak.

Who believe extermination as the only answer, but the next step to peace will be a peace convoy from Jerusalem and Gaza to act as a human shield from Armageddon, but like Hamas the vast majority of Jews see red and I can't blame them, but fighting in Gaza could become Israel's Stalingrad. I hope for peace.

As Winston Churchill said, "It's better to jaw jaw than war war."

Jerusalem 1920

Population 1922.

Jewish 33,971 Muslims 13,413 Christian 14,669

And about 4000 others.

Of course the rest of Palestine was another story.

Jewish 84,000 Christian 71,000 Muslims 589,000

It was a different world.

Jerusalem was a different place.

Another Day Another Massacre

After the defeat of the Arab forces in 1948, almost a million Palestinian Arabs fled their houses, villages, and cities in fear of the conquering Israelis. This exodus was a trail of tears. The Palestinians called the tragedy Nakba.

The victors showed no mercy during the ethnic cleansing of the region.

The refugees never were allowed to go home.

This week tens of thousands of protestors gathered in Gaza to protest the injustice.

The IDF or Israeli Defense Force responded by shooting live rounds into the crowds.

Hundreds have been killed by the IDF hiding behind dirt berms.

Safe from harm.

They shoot men.

They shoot women.

They shoot the press.

And they kill children.

like the Nazis of Babi Yar.

Meanwhile the Trump regime celebrates the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem.

Tanks.

Versus a boy throwing a stone.

Shame.

Memories Of Palestine

Several years ago I was getting gold chains on 47th Street to show a customer at the Plaza Hotel store opened by Richie Boy. Business was slow at the exchange and the older gold dealer asked with a Levantine accent, "Where are you from?"

"Boston." No one in the Diamond District had ever asked my origins. I am a goy. Gentiles don't really count except on the Shabbath, when the Hassidim need us to turn on the lights.

"Are you Jewish?" He picked out several heavy necklaces.

"No, I'm the Shabbath Goy."

"I'm not Jewish either. I'm an Armenian born in Israel." Armenians are scattered through the jewelry business. "I left in 1957."

"That's a while ago." I had been five when he arrived in the USA

"I've spent my entire working life on this street."

"And have you ever seen times like this?" I signed the memo.

"Never."

"Not even in Palestine." I put the gold necklaces into a packet and slipped it into my jacket.

"That's the first time I've ever heard anyone on this street call it that." He smiled with a lost sadness. "Palestine. It wasn't like they said. All that dreck about changing the land from desert. Feh. It was beautiful. More natural. Like Utah. And the fruit. It wasn't fake like now. But what can you do?"

"Just remember I guess." Like I remember so many good things in New York like the Second Avenue Deli, the St. Mark's Movie Theater, and CBGBs.

"Well, have a good day."

I thanked him for his best wishes and headed back to the Plaza Hotel. It was a little after 10.

My cellphone rang. It was Richie Boy.

"Why aren't you at the Plaza?"

"I had to pick up some pieces to show a customer." The Plaza store had nothing like them in our inventory

"Hurry up."

"Yeah, sure." I hung up and slowed my pace.

In the past no one was in such a hurry as the 21st Century.

Certainly not in Boston and not Palestine.

I was going to open late.

It happened every day when business was slow.

It was a land of many faiths.

A land of Milk and Honey.

Palestine had access to the sea.

The Wailing Wall.

The beauty of Palestine is not gone.

Just buried under modernity.

A Chink In The Wall

The differences between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were apparent on Thursday’s Democratic primary debate.

Hillary was for a $12 minimum wage, she didn't believe in breaking up the banks, and the former Secretary of State criticized Senator Sanders for promoting Universal Health Care, however between the two candidates the gap increased a chasm when Sanders responded to a question about Israel by saying that Hillary “barely mentioning” the Palestinian people during her AIPAC speech.

“I read Secretary Clinton’s speech before AIPAC. I heard virtually no discussion at all about the needs of the Palestinian people. Of course Israel has a right to defend itself, but long-term, there will never be peace in that region, unless the United States plays an even-handed role, trying to bring people together and recognizing the serious problems that exist among the Palestinian people ... There comes a time when, if we pursue justice and peace, we are going to have to say that Netanyahu is not right all of the time.”

Bernie opted out of the AIPAC meeting and spoke at a Utah high school about Palestinian unemployment and poverty, Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and the Jewish nation's attempts to derail peace talks with Iran.

American politicians have traditionally never mentioned Palestine.

I applaud Bernie Sanders for his bold step toward justice for the people of Gaza and the West Bank.

Free Palestine.

Free the world.

Bibi Came To Congress

Yesterday the Israeli PM appeared before the joint houses of the US Congress at the invitation of GOP leader John Boehner. While hundreds of world leaders have spoken from the podium on congress, all had been invited by the sitting president. The media loved this spat between Obama, the Republicans, and Netanyahu, who is facing a close election in Israel. Critics attacked the right-wing Zionist for overstepping the boundaries of diplomacy, however Bibi Netanyahu was greeted by a long boisterous ovation from both sides of the aisle, as the GOP and Democrats displayed their support for the Zionist State. The Prime Minister waited for the ten-minute long applause to died out and then hectored the audience about how the upcoming anti-nuclear pact with Iran endangered the existence of Israel and its apartheid policies against the Palestinians.

In his speech Netanyahu referred to the Iranians as Persians and claimed the ancestors of Xerxes were a year away from producing a nuclear bomb.

Israel has been saying that for about twenty years.

The Israelis also were instrumental in feeding information about Saddam's WMD program to a gullible George W. Bush.

Centrifuges, yellow cake, a year from production of a nuke.

Same speech as always.

Fear.

Never again.

I agree with those two words in thought and deed.

But not one Palestinian worked in Dachau or Buchenwald.

I'm half-Irish.

The British stole our lands.

They stayed for 600 years.

The UK consider Ulster as part of the Empire.

No day it will be free.

Same as Palestine.

Same as the Jews, because we are all one in peace.

Here is the list of Senators brave enough to buck the Zionist agenda

SENATE

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

Hillary Clinton showed herself to be a sell-out.

Same as on the Iraq War vote.

New England - Be proud. \

THEY ARE ANIMALS By Peter Nolan Smith

The other day I was on 47th Street selling a diamond. I ran into a young friend. Shimon spotted my NY Times opened to an article about Hamas.

"Animals."

"Excuse me." I liked Shimon. We shared the same taste in clothing.

"Hamas are animals. They hide behind civilians and hide weapons in schools." His chest puffed with righteous indignation.

"That's what the Nazis said about the Jews." I didn't mention that the KKK and John Birch Society shared the same thought.

"What would you do if someone was firing missiles at you?"

"You mean missiles that don't hit anything?"

"People die from the missiles."

"Out of the twelve thousand missiles fired in the last ten years twenty-eight Israelis have been killed versus over 500 Palestinian children killed during the recent Gaza operations by the IDF."

"Because Hamas is hiding behind the civilians."

"No, because the IDF was angered by the number of soldiers killed during their attacks and went blood red for revenge. The blast radius of an artillery shell is 64 meters, which means if there was a missile launcher at St. Patrick's Cathedral we would get blasted to dust."

"But what would you do if they were shooting missiles at you?"

"I'd kill everyone of them."

"And push them into the sea."

"Exactly, but I'm not a Nazi or a Zionist or a member of Hamas. I'm Irish and I know that at one time you have to sit down with the other side and talk about peace or else you'll lose the war and Israel, because people will not back murder or talk about people being animals. Neve again a Shoah. Not for anyone, unless you believe that the Holocaust was a good thing, because it create Israel."

I walked away without hearing his answer.

Shimon texted me later that I was an asshole.

I replied, "לעולם לא עוד."

Like I said I'm Irish and my people lived through the Famine.

"Go deo arís."

It is the way to live.

Anything else is strictly about death and death is not an option for those who have lived through Shoah, the Famine, or the Nakba.

I texted back to Shimon, if he had a two-carat diamond for a certain price.

"Of course."

"Good man."

After all the first law on 47th Street was 'nimmt geld' or take money.

And with my many mouths to feed I am a true believer in taking money.

As well as peace.

Free Palestine.

Free the world

We are not animals.

Free The World

In 2011 gold soared to record levels and every day a steady flow of customers entered our diamond exchange on West 47th Street to sell their precious jewelry and family heirlooms. They were of all ages, nationalities, and races. Most of them were honest, but buying stolen merchandise or swag was a crime. Richie Boy, his father Manny, and I didn't care who they are as long as they possess a valid ID for our police records. None of us were young men and we had too little to gain from doing the wrong thing, when we could churn out a 5% profit on a steady flow of buys.

Our first question to these sellers was, “Who much do you want?” Most of them said that they don’t know, but they all had a final price. "Let me check it out." I ignored their feigned ignorance and tested the gold for karat and weight.

We calculated everything in pennyweights or 1/20th of an ounce. The Middle Age measurement confused the buyer, but we always handed them a slip of paper from a adding machine. Everything was in black and white. The final price was determined by the market value of an ounce of gold, which fluctuated day to day.

In 2011 the price fluctuated up.

Those weight and market value determined the scrap worth of gold.

We paid nothing for sentimental value.

Our firm had a good reputation for paying the most on the street. "We only make 5% on this."

It was the truth, but some pieces could be flipped for more, especially diamond rings.

Late in the summer a young man of Semitic descent approached my counter. He had a few diamond ring in a bag. They were relics of a ruined romance.

After settling on a price of $1500, I advised the young man to buy something for himself.

“Paying off bills does not soothe a broken heart.”

“Yes, but for $1500 you can buy a good used motorcycle. Let me see your ID.” I took his driver’s license.

His name was Arab. I entered it in the police book.

“Are you from Iraq?”

“No, Palestine.” Mohammed spoke flawless English. His father had grocery stores in Queens. He was running three of them.

“Palestine is a forbidden name on this street.” 47th Street was predominantly Jewish.

They backed Israel right or wrong and Israel could do no wrong in their eyes. I was a goy. I had my own beliefs.

"It's my country"

"I'm half-Irish. My people lived under the British for four hundred years. “I can only say one thing.”

“Which is?” He was used to America’s prejudice against Palestine.

The movie EXODUS had blue-eyed Paul Newman as a member of the Zionist terrorist gang and a young blonde Jill Haworth as a kibbutz farmer. There were no Hassidim in the film.

Only tough white-skinned fighters.

“Free Palestine.” I had a tee-shirt in my closet stating the same slogan.

I raised my fist, the accepted sign of world revolution.

“Good, but it is better to free the world.” Mohammed smiled and accepted his money.

“I’ll think about that bike and you think about the world.”

“I’ll do that.” I leaned away from the counter slightly stunned.

I had been taught an important lesson by this young man.

A simple lesson.

All politics that are local are also global.

They effect everyone.

Everywhere.

Free Palestine.

Free the World.

Memories Of Palestine

Several years ago I was getting gold chains on 47th Street to show a customer at the Plaza Hotel store opened by Richie Boy. Business was slow at the exchange and the older gold dealer asked with a Levantine accent, "Where are you from?"

"Boston." No one in the Diamond District had ever asked my origins. I am a goy. Gentiles don't really count except on the Shabbath, when the Hassidim need us to turn on the lights.

"Are you Jewish?" He picked out several heavy necklaces.

"No, I'm the Shabbath Goy."

"I'm not Jewish either. I'm an Armenian born in Israel." Armenians are scattered through the jewelry business. "I left in 1957."

"That's a while ago." I had been five when he arrived in the USA

"I've spent my entire working life on this street."

"And have you ever seen times like this?" I signed the memo.

"Never."

"Not even in Palestine." I put the gold necklaces into a packet and slipped it into my jacket.

"That's the first time I've ever heard anyone on this street call it that." He smiled with a lost sadness. "Palestine. It wasn't like they said. It was beautiful. More natural. Like Utah. And the fruit. It wasn't fake like now. But what can you do?"

"Just remember I guess." Like I remember so many good things in New York like the Second Avenue Deli, the St. Mark's Movie Theater, and CBGBs.

"Well, have a good day."

I thanked him for his best wishes and headed back to the Plaza Hotel. It was a little after 10.

My cellphone rang. It was Richie Boy.

"Why aren't you at the Plaza?"

"I had to pick up some pieces to show a customer." The Plaza store had nothing like them in our inventory

"Hurry up."

"Yeah, sure." I hung up and slowed my pace.

In the past no one was in such a hurry as the 21st Century.

Certainly not in Boston and not Palestine.

I was going to open late.

It happened every day when business was slow.

The Peace Of Zion

Israeli leader Ariel Sharon’s life spanned the history of his country.

He was born in Palestine and joined the Haganah at age 14 in 1942. The teenager fought during the partition of Palestine and later joined Unit 101, which specialized in cross-border raids and committed massacres in revenge for attacks by the fedayeen. Sharon fought in Israel's many wars and served in many government posts including Prime Minister. He stood for Zionism right and wrong, however in 2005 he evacuated Gaza.

Later that year he succumbed to a stroke and lived in a vegetative state until this month.

His death was mourned by the western media.

The Palestinian said nothing.

His troops had slaughtered Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, and Lebanon without mercy.

He never believed in peace and sought to ghettoize the Palestinians from the world and he succeeded in this endeavor in hopes of creating a Jewish state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

While I understand Israeli opinion of Ariel Sharon as a protector of his people, they failed to comprehend the price of this esteem.

There can be no peace when you are constantly at war.

Someone has to recognize this.

On both sides.

( AFP/Getty Images / June 15, 1982 ) Ariel Sharon, right, as Israeli defense minister, rides with troops in June 1982 en route to East Beirut. Sharon had received Cabinet approval to thrust 25 miles into Lebanon, for a strike that was supposed to last two days, to thwart Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. Instead, he instructed the army to drive all the way to Beirut, where it laid siege to Yasser Arafat and his forces for two months. The invasion drew international condemnation for the high number of civilian casualties.

Hide Easter Bunny Hide

Israel versus the Palestinian Easter Bunny. No chance.

On Vacation

An Israeli landed at Kennedy Airport in New York and at immigration the US Customs officer asked, "Occupation ? " The Israeli answers, "No, just for visit."