An Academic Conference on Ethiopian Jewry

But the Begin Center was not invited:-

Symposium: Ethiopia and Ethiopians, Yesterday to Today – 1991 to 2011

A two-day symposium ' Ethiopia and Ethiopians, Yesterday to Today – 1991 to 2011: Regime Change and Operation Solomon' will take place this week on Tuesday May 17 and Wednesday, May 18 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The first day, which will be conducted in English, will include sessions on 'Ethiopia: Economics and ethnicity', 'Aspects of Ethiopian culture at home and abroad', 'Islam in Ethiopia and Israeli-Ethiopia Relations', 'How Operation Solomon came to life' delivered by former Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia and coordinator of Operation Solomon, Uri Lubrani, 'The Zionism of Ethiopian Jewry and its influence on our sense of mission' and 'Aliyah through Addis Ababa: Legal but complex'. The first day will be held in Room 502, Maiersdorf Faculty Club, Mount Scopus campus.

The second day, which will be conducted in Hebrew, will include sessions on 'A comparative look at Jewish Ethiopian Aliyah', 'Health in the Israeli Ethiopian community', 'Learning Amharic in Israel', 'Containment and exclusion of Ethiopians in the education system', and 'Media and its accessibility in the Ethiopian Community'. The second day will take place n the Abba Eban Conference Hall, Truman Institute, Mount Scopus campus.

Speakers over the two days include Ethiopian ambassador to Israel, H.E. Helaw Yosef; former Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia and coordinator of Operation Solomon, Uri Lubrani; Deputy Director General, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and head of the Mashav Center for International Cooperation, Haim Divon; head Jewish Agency representative, Israeli Consul during Operation Solomon, Micha Feldman; Member of Knesset Shlomo Molla; executive director, Association for Ethiopian Microfinance Institutions, Ethiopia, Wolday Amha; former editor, Yediot Negat, Batia Makover; CEO, Israeli-Ethiopian Television Channel, Fasil Legassa; and national coordinator for the promotion of Ethiopian public health, Isaac Seffefe.

The symposium is being run under the auspices of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace and the Avraham Harman Institute for Contemporary Jewry.

New Historical Map Published

The Begin Center announces the publication of a map of Jerusalem that marks places where Underground actions took place. The map contains 170 actions and operations conducted by the Hagana, Betar, Brit HaBiryonim, Irgun. Palmah and Lechi in Jerusalem between 1920-1948.

These actions include defense measures and reprisals against Arabs, attacks again st institutions and officials of the British Mandatory authority as well as against each other.

Each location is marked by number and has a correlating guide with a concise description of the event. This will allow history enthusiasts to go on self-guided tours through Jerusalem exploring the history of the Underground movements. At this time, the map is only available in Hebrew, but we hope to publish it in the future in English and possibly other languages. The map will be available for sale soon. The research of the historical material was done by Yisrael Medad, director of Information Resources at the Center.

The cover:

A section of the map:

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When Begin Was Ill

Yossi Sarid, leftist head of Meretz, writes following Ezriel Nevo's recollections in Maariv (here, in Hebrew) from when Menachem Begin became ill during the period of the Fist Lebanon War:-

In those days, there was no prime minister in Israel and the defense minister did what he felt was right. For the first time, one of the close aides has admitted his guilt: “[Begin aide Yehiel] Kadishai, [former cabinet minister Yaakov] Meridor and I spoke a great deal about it.

It is impossible to act as if there is a prime minister when there is not,” said the former military aide, Azriel Nevo, in an interview with Ben Caspit this week. “We should have been put on trial for hiding [Menachem] Begin’s condition and the public didn’t know that.”

Perhaps I have already recounted how one time another Begin aide came to me, locked the door, and confessed that Begin was ill and not functioning, Arik [Sharon] was going berserk, and the state was in danger. You are the only one who can break the conspiracy of silence, he said.

I did not. Were I to have raised the curtain then the other players would have acted dumb and recited: What do you mean sick and depressed? That’s just a wicked fabrication by someone opposed to the prime minister and his war.

nd the feelings of the public would have gone out to the tortured Begin, who was being forced to wage two wars at once, an internal and an external one. Who would have believed me?

This is the first time that a central insider has described the conspiracy. How Sharon was “purposely exhausting and killing Begin,” how “ministers and officers were dead scared of him,” how “information was hidden from the prime minister and the government,” and how the border of the war was being stealthily expanded. Even 29 years later, I was filled with dread and fury when I read this.

In those days of the shadow of death, I was a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. We too were taken for a ride. Arik did not lie, he merely spun misleading cobwebs around us. He left the dirty work of deception to people who were less sophisticated than he was, like Raful [former chief of staff Rafael Eitan], who lied without being aware of it. Nevo also testified to this.

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Begin's Opinion on Jerusalem Recalled

The Supreme Court and the Jerusalem Debate
By SETH LIPSKY

Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin used to warn against deciding the political status of Jerusalem in the U.S. Congress. But what about at the Supreme Court? It's a pressing question because America's highest court might soon rule on whether, under American law, Jerusalem is or is not part of Israel.

The court has just agreed to hear a case in which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is being sued by a 9-year-old American citizen named Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky. M.B.Z., as the court refers to the youth, was born in Jerusalem and wants the American Embassy in Tel Aviv to issue him a certificate of birth abroad stating that he was born in Israel.

What makes the case so explosive is not only that it involves the question of Jerusalem, but that it also pits the executive branch against the Congress. In agreeing to hear the case, the court specifically ordered the lawyers to focus on whether the law "impermissibly infringes the President's power to recognize foreign sovereigns." The case also involves presidential signing statements. Can a president, in signing a piece of legislation, announce that he doesn't agree with part of it and doesn't intend to enforce the law?

Mrs. Clinton's lawyers argue that this case raises a political question of the kind that the Supreme Court has steered away from in the past. But it's not a dispute between, say, Democrats and Republicans. It involves a law passed in 2002, when the Senate was controlled by the Democrats and the House by the Republicans.

The relevant law is the part of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2002 that deals with "United States policy with respect to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel." The Supreme Court will adjudicate the provision stating that, for "purposes of the registration of birth, certification of nationality, or issuance of a passport of a United States citizen born in the city of Jerusalem, the Secretary [of State] shall, upon the request of the citizen or the citizen's legal guardian, record the place of birth as Israel."

The bill passed the Senate, of which Mrs. Clinton was then a member, by unanimous consent. In other words, she's now refusing to carry out a law she helped pass. But when President George W. Bush signed the law, he issued a signing statement suggesting that he didn't intend to enforce that part of the law. The measure, he said, "impermissibly interferes with the President's constitutional authority to conduct the Nation's foreign affairs and to supervise the unitary executive branch."

Mr. Bush also complained that "the purported direction" would, "if construed as mandatory rather than advisory, impermissibly interfere with the President's constitutional authority to formulate the position of the United States, speak for the Nation in international affairs, and determine the terms on which recognition is given to foreign states."

Mr. Bush was challenged by the infant Mr. Zivotofsky—via his parents—not long after he was born. In the fight over whether the Supreme Court would take the case, Mrs. Clinton echoed Mr. Bush's concerns, citing her department's view that "any unilateral action by the United States that would signal, symbolically or concretely, that it recognizes that Jerusalem is a city that is located within the sovereign territory of Israel would critically compromise the ability of the United States to work with Israelis, Palestinians and others in the region to further the peace process."

So far, lower courts have agreed with Mrs. Clinton that this matter is a "political question" and not justiciable. But the young Mr. Zivotofsky's lawyer, Nathan Lewin, was able to convince the Supreme Court to hear the case by arguing, in part, that this matter is no longer a "political question" precisely because Congress has already acted.

Given all the other foreign affairs and political disputes in which Congress does act—from foreign aid to the United Nations to the Senate's ratification of treaties—it's illogical to suggest that the terms for issuing certificates of birth abroad are beyond the reach of the elected legislature.

Mr. Lipsky, editor of the New York Sun, is the author of "The Citizen's Constitution: An Annotated Guide" (Basic Books, 2009).

Will We Find Out the Historical Truth?

Well, here's a new development:

Thousands of documents removed from former British colonies were regarded as a “guilty secret” and hidden, according to a damning internal review by the Foreign Office. The files were discovered earlier this year in connection with a legal case brought by four elderly Kenyans...After The Times revealed last month that 1,500 Mau Mau files had been discovered, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, announced that 8,800 files from dozens of former colonies had been located. He ordered a full investigation into why such potentially incriminating material had not been released under the Public Records Act, and pledged to open it to the public. “It is my intention to release every part of every paper of interest subject only to legal exemptions,” Mr Hague said in a statement yesterday. The review was carried out by Anthony Cary, former British High Commissioner to Canada...

The “migrated archive” includes files secretly removed before independence from some 37 former colonies, including Cyprus, Aden, Palestine, Nigeria and Malaya because they “might embarrass HMG or other governments”.  The files, covering 700 feet of shelving, are in Hanslope Park, the closed Foreign Office archive near Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.

...A tantalising glimpse of the kind of secrets the archive’s documents might reveal is offered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s internal report...in 2007, staff recorded the presence of five boxes containing “files on the bombing of the King David Hotel” in Palestine. The attack occurred in 1946 when the hotel was the headquarters of both the British Military Command and Criminal Investigation Division.

On July 22, members of the right-wing Zionist paramilitary group Irgun, led by Menachem Begin, who went on to be Prime Minister of Israel twice, planted a bomb in the basement of the main building. Telephone warnings were not heeded and 91 people were killed and 46 wounded.

If one waits long enough, truth will out.

Photos of a Recent Visit of Yehiel Kadishai

The Begin Center Archivesd are named in honor of Yehiel and Esther/Bambi Kadishai and Yehiel oftens visits.

Some photographs of a recent visit:

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Begin and The Falkland Islands

A new book has claimed that Menachem Begin's reason for authorizing a company to sell arms to Argentina had to do with a seemingly hatred of England and love for the hanged Dov Gruner.

Reported:-

New book claims late prime minister sent weapons to avenge death of Dov Gruner, who was hanged by British Mandatory Authorities in 1947..

...Begin agreed to cooperate against Britain fairly quickly, saying: "You've come to talk badly about the British. Is this going to be used to kill the English? Go ahead. Dov up there is going to be happy with the decision. Obviously, it must be all done perfectly."

Israel Lotersztain, a former salesman for Isrex Argentina who was present in the meeting, said: "He hated the British above anything else. Everyone had forgotten the British occupation, but not him."

While we are still researching the matter, we came across words spoken by Mr. Begin at a meeting of the Cabinet on June 5, 1982:

The United States is today supporting Mrs. Thatcher, who bases herself on Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, that is, the right of self-defense, 13,000 kilometers distance from England's shores and we cannot apply the right of self-defense against the bloodshedding when it happens on our doorstep?  This is anarchy, an abandonment of principle.  We shall not act?...

This was the meeting that authorized the commencement of Operation Peace Over the Galillee.

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