The first U.S. Jewish President? Read to the bottom
The first U.S. Jewish President? Read to the botom
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Lyndon Johnson’s maternal ancestors, the Huffmans, apparently migrated to Frederick, Maryland from Germa
According to Jewish law, if a person’s mother is Jewish, then that person is automatically Jewish, regardless of the father’s ethnicity or religion. The facts indicate that both of Lyndon Johnson’s great-grandparents, on the maternal side, were Jewish. These were the grandparents of Lyndon’s mother, Rebecca Baines.11 Their names were John S. Huffman and Mary Elizabeth Perrin.12John Huffman’s mother was Suzanne Ament, a common Jewish name. Perrin is also a common Jewish name.
Huffman and Perrin had a daughter, Ruth Ament Huffman,13 who married Joseph Baines14 and together they had a daughter, Rebekah Baines,15 Lyndon Johnson’s mother. The line of Jewish mothers can be traced back three generations in Lyndon Johnson’s family tree. There is little doubt that he was Jewish."
"A few months ago, the Associated Press reported that newly released tapes from US president Lyndon Johnson's White House office showed LBJ's "personal and often emotional connection to Israel.” The news agency pointed out that during the Johnson presidency (1963-1969), "the United States became Israel’s chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier."
But the news report does little to reveal the full historical extent of Johnson's actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
Most students of the Arab-Israeli conflict can identify Johnson as the president during the 1967 war. But few know about LBJ's actions to rescue hundreds of endangered Jews during the Holocaust - actions that could have thrown him out of Congress and into jail. Indeed, the title of "Righteous Gentile" is certainly appropriate in the case of the Texan, whose centennial year is being commemorated this year.
Appropriately enough, the annual Jerusalem Conference announced this week that it will honor Johnson.
Historians have revealed that Johnson, while serving as a young congressman in 1938 and 1939, arranged for visas to be supplied to Jews in Warsaw, and oversaw the apparently illegal immigration of hundreds of Jews through the port of Galveston, Texas..
A key resource for uncovering LBJ's pro-Jewish activity is the unpublished 1989 doctoral thesis by University of Texas student Louis Gomolak, "Prologue: LBJ's Foreign Affairs Background, 1908-1948.” Johnson's activities were confirmed by other historians in interviews with his wife, family members and political associates.
Research into Johnson's personal history indicates that he inherited his concern for the Jewish people from his family. His aunt Jessie Johnson Hatcher, a major influence on LBJ, was a member of the Zionist Organization of America. According to Gomolak, Aunt Jessie had nurtured LBJ's commitment to befriending Jews for 50 years. As young boy, Lyndon watched his politically active grandfather "Big Sam" and father "Little Sam" seek clemency for Leo Frank, the Jewish victim of a blood libel in Atlanta
Frank was lynched by a mob in 1915, and the Ku Klux Klan in Texas threatened to kill the Johnsons. The Johnsons later told friends that Lyndon's family hid in their cellar while his father and uncles stood guard with shotguns on their porch in case of KKK attacks. Johnson's speech writer later stated, "Johnson often cited Leo Frank's lynching as the source of his opposition to both anti-Semitism and isolationism."
Already in 1934 - four years before Chamberlain's Munich sellout to Hitler - Johnson was keenly alert to the dangers of Nazism and presented a book of essays, 'Nazism: An Assault on Civilization', to the 21-year-old woman he was courting, Claudia Taylor - later known as "Lady Bird" Johnson. It was an incredible engagement present.
FIVE DAYS after taking office in 1937, LBJ broke with the "Dixiecrats" and supported an immigration bill that would naturalize illegal aliens, mostly Jews from Lithuania and Poland. In 1938, Johnson was told of a young Austrian Jewish musician who was about to be deported from theUnited States. With an element of subterfuge, LBJ sent him to the USConsulate in Havana to obtain a residency permit. Erich Leinsdorf, the world famous musician and conductor, credited LBJ for saving his live.
That same year, LBJ warned Jewish friend, Jim Novy, that European Jews faced annihilation. "Get as many Jewish people as possible out ofGermany and Poland," were Johnson's instructions. Somehow, Johnson provided him with a pile of signed immigration papers that were used to get 42 Jews out of Warsaw.
But that wasn't enough. According to historian James M. Smallwood, Congressman Johnson used legal and sometimes illegal methods to smuggle "hundreds of Jews into Texas, using Galveston as the entry port.
Enough money could buy false passports and fake visas in Cuba, Mexicoand other Latin American countries. Johnson smuggled boatloads and planeloads of Jews into Texas. He hid them in the Texas National Youth Administration. Johnson saved at least four or five hundred Jews, possibly more."
During World War II Johnson joined Novy at a small Austin gathering to sell $65,000 in war bonds. According to Gomolak, Novy and Johnson then raised a very "substantial sum for arms for Jewish underground fighters in Palestine." One source cited by the historian reports that "Novy and Johnson had been secretly shipping heavy crates labeled 'Texas Grapefruit' - but containing arms - to Jewish underground 'freedom fighters' in Palestine."
ON JUNE 4, 1945, Johnson visited Dachau. According to Smallwood, Lady Bird later recalled that when her husband returned home, "he was still shaken, stunned, terrorized, and bursting with an overpowering revulsion and incredulous horror at what he had seen."
A decade later while serving in the Senate, Johnson blocked the Eisenhower administration's attempts to apply sanctions against Israelfollowing the 1956 Sinai Campaign. "The indefatigable Johnson had never ceased pressure on the administration," wrote I.L. "Si" Kenen, the head of AIPAC at the time.
As Senate majority leader, Johnson consistently blocked the anti-Israel initiatives of his fellow Democrat, William Fulbright, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Among Johnson's closest advisers during this period were several strong pro-Israel advocates, including Benjamin Cohen (who 30 years earlier was the liaison between Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis and Chaim Weizmann) and Abe Fortas, the legendary Washington "insider."
Johnson's concern for the Jewish people continued through his presidency. Soon after taking office in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Johnson told an Israeli diplomat, "You have lost a very great friend, but you have found a better one."
Just one month after succeeding Kennedy, LBJ attended the December 1963 dedication of the Agudas Achim Synagogue in Austin. Novy opened the ceremony by saying to Johnson, "We can't thank him enough for all those Jews he got out of Germany during the days of Hitler."
Lady Bird would later describe the day, according to Gomolak: "Person after person plucked at my sleeve and said, 'I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for him. He helped me get out.'" Lady Bird elaborated, "Jews had been woven into the warp and woof of all [Lyndon's] years."
THE PRELUDE to the 1967 war was a terrifying period for Israel, with the US State Department led by the historically unfriendly Dean Rusk urging an evenhanded policy despite Arab threats and acts of aggression. Johnson held no such illusions. After the war he placed the blame firmly on Egypt: "If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision [by Egypt that the Strait of Tiran would be closed [to Israeli ships and Israeli-bound cargo]."
Kennedy was the first president to approve the sale of defensive US weapons to Israel, specifically Hawk anti-aircraft missiles. But Johnson approved tanks and fighter jets, all vital after the 1967 war when Franceimposed a freeze on sales to Israel. Yehuda Avner recently described on these pages prime minister Levi Eshkol's successful appeal for these weapons on a visit to the LBJ ranch.
Israel won the 1967 war, and Johnson worked to make sure it also won the peace. "I sure as hell want to be careful and not run out on little Israel," Johnson said in a March 1968 conversation with his ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg, according to White House tapes recently released.
Soon after the 1967 war, Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin asked Johnson at the Glassboro Summit why the US supported Israel when there were 80 million Arabs and only three million Israelis. "Because it is a right thing to do," responded the straight-shooting Texan.
The crafting of UN Resolution 242 in November 1967 was done under Johnson's scrutiny. The call for "secure and recognized boundaries" was critical. The American and British drafters of the resolution opposed Israel returning all the territories captured in the war. In September 1968, Johnson explained, "We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders. Some such lines must be agreed to by the neighbors involved."
Goldberg later noted, "Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate." This historic diplomacy was conducted under Johnson's stewardship, as Goldberg related in oral history to the Johnson Library. "I must say for Johnson," Goldberg stated. "He gave me great personal support."
Robert David Johnson, a professor of history at Brooklyn College, recently wrote in The New York Sun, Johnson's policies stemmed more from personal concerns - his friendship with leading Zionists, his belief that America had a moral obligation to bolster Israeli security and his conception of Israel as a frontier land much like his home state of Texas. His personal concerns led him to intervene when he felt that the State or Defense departments had insufficiently appreciated Israel’s diplomatic or military needs."
President Johnson firmly pointed American policy in a pro-Israel direction. In a historical context, the American emergency airlift toIsrael in 1973, the constant diplomatic support, the economic and military assistance and the strategic bonds between the two countries can all be credited to the seeds planted by LBJ.
I thought I would remember LBJ as the modern civil rights President.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Lyndon Johnson’s maternal ancestors, the Huffmans, apparently migrated to Frederick, Maryland from Germa
According to Jewish law, if a person’s mother is Jewish, then that person is automatically Jewish, regardless of the father’s ethnicity or religion. The facts indicate that both of Lyndon Johnson’s great-grandparents, on the maternal side, were Jewish. These were the grandparents of Lyndon’s mother, Rebecca Baines.11 Their names were John S. Huffman and Mary Elizabeth Perrin.12John Huffman’s mother was Suzanne Ament, a common Jewish name. Perrin is also a common Jewish name.
Huffman and Perrin had a daughter, Ruth Ament Huffman,13 who married Joseph Baines14 and together they had a daughter, Rebekah Baines,15 Lyndon Johnson’s mother. The line of Jewish mothers can be traced back three generations in Lyndon Johnson’s family tree. There is little doubt that he was Jewish."
THIS IS AN AMAZING & INTERESTING READ! IT CAME FROM A RELIABLE SOURCE SO... I ASSUME IT'S ACCURATE.
But the news report does little to reveal the full historical extent of Johnson's actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
Most students of the Arab-Israeli conflict can identify Johnson as the president during the 1967 war. But few know about LBJ's actions to rescue hundreds of endangered Jews during the Holocaust - actions that could have thrown him out of Congress and into jail. Indeed, the title of "Righteous Gentile" is certainly appropriate in the case of the Texan, whose centennial year is being commemorated this year.
Appropriately enough, the annual Jerusalem Conference announced this week that it will honor Johnson.
Historians have revealed that Johnson, while serving as a young congressman in 1938 and 1939, arranged for visas to be supplied to Jews in Warsaw, and oversaw the apparently illegal immigration of hundreds of Jews through the port of Galveston, Texas..
A key resource for uncovering LBJ's pro-Jewish activity is the unpublished 1989 doctoral thesis by University of Texas student Louis Gomolak, "Prologue: LBJ's Foreign Affairs Background, 1908-1948.” Johnson's activities were confirmed by other historians in interviews with his wife, family members and political associates.
Research into Johnson's personal history indicates that he inherited his concern for the Jewish people from his family. His aunt Jessie Johnson Hatcher, a major influence on LBJ, was a member of the Zionist Organization of America. According to Gomolak, Aunt Jessie had nurtured LBJ's commitment to befriending Jews for 50 years. As young boy, Lyndon watched his politically active grandfather "Big Sam" and father "Little Sam" seek clemency for Leo Frank, the Jewish victim of a blood libel in Atlanta
Frank was lynched by a mob in 1915, and the Ku Klux Klan in Texas threatened to kill the Johnsons. The Johnsons later told friends that Lyndon's family hid in their cellar while his father and uncles stood guard with shotguns on their porch in case of KKK attacks. Johnson's speech writer later stated, "Johnson often cited Leo Frank's lynching as the source of his opposition to both anti-Semitism and isolationism."
Already in 1934 - four years before Chamberlain's Munich sellout to Hitler - Johnson was keenly alert to the dangers of Nazism and presented a book of essays, 'Nazism: An Assault on Civilization', to the 21-year-old woman he was courting, Claudia Taylor - later known as "Lady Bird" Johnson. It was an incredible engagement present.
FIVE DAYS after taking office in 1937, LBJ broke with the "Dixiecrats" and supported an immigration bill that would naturalize illegal aliens, mostly Jews from Lithuania and Poland. In 1938, Johnson was told of a young Austrian Jewish musician who was about to be deported from theUnited States. With an element of subterfuge, LBJ sent him to the USConsulate in Havana to obtain a residency permit. Erich Leinsdorf, the world famous musician and conductor, credited LBJ for saving his live.
That same year, LBJ warned Jewish friend, Jim Novy, that European Jews faced annihilation. "Get as many Jewish people as possible out ofGermany and Poland," were Johnson's instructions. Somehow, Johnson provided him with a pile of signed immigration papers that were used to get 42 Jews out of Warsaw.
But that wasn't enough. According to historian James M. Smallwood, Congressman Johnson used legal and sometimes illegal methods to smuggle "hundreds of Jews into Texas, using Galveston as the entry port.
Enough money could buy false passports and fake visas in Cuba, Mexicoand other Latin American countries. Johnson smuggled boatloads and planeloads of Jews into Texas. He hid them in the Texas National Youth Administration. Johnson saved at least four or five hundred Jews, possibly more."
During World War II Johnson joined Novy at a small Austin gathering to sell $65,000 in war bonds. According to Gomolak, Novy and Johnson then raised a very "substantial sum for arms for Jewish underground fighters in Palestine." One source cited by the historian reports that "Novy and Johnson had been secretly shipping heavy crates labeled 'Texas Grapefruit' - but containing arms - to Jewish underground 'freedom fighters' in Palestine."
ON JUNE 4, 1945, Johnson visited Dachau. According to Smallwood, Lady Bird later recalled that when her husband returned home, "he was still shaken, stunned, terrorized, and bursting with an overpowering revulsion and incredulous horror at what he had seen."
A decade later while serving in the Senate, Johnson blocked the Eisenhower administration's attempts to apply sanctions against Israelfollowing the 1956 Sinai Campaign. "The indefatigable Johnson had never ceased pressure on the administration," wrote I.L. "Si" Kenen, the head of AIPAC at the time.
As Senate majority leader, Johnson consistently blocked the anti-Israel initiatives of his fellow Democrat, William Fulbright, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Among Johnson's closest advisers during this period were several strong pro-Israel advocates, including Benjamin Cohen (who 30 years earlier was the liaison between Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis and Chaim Weizmann) and Abe Fortas, the legendary Washington "insider."
Johnson's concern for the Jewish people continued through his presidency. Soon after taking office in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Johnson told an Israeli diplomat, "You have lost a very great friend, but you have found a better one."
Just one month after succeeding Kennedy, LBJ attended the December 1963 dedication of the Agudas Achim Synagogue in Austin. Novy opened the ceremony by saying to Johnson, "We can't thank him enough for all those Jews he got out of Germany during the days of Hitler."
Lady Bird would later describe the day, according to Gomolak: "Person after person plucked at my sleeve and said, 'I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for him. He helped me get out.'" Lady Bird elaborated, "Jews had been woven into the warp and woof of all [Lyndon's] years."
THE PRELUDE to the 1967 war was a terrifying period for Israel, with the US State Department led by the historically unfriendly Dean Rusk urging an evenhanded policy despite Arab threats and acts of aggression. Johnson held no such illusions. After the war he placed the blame firmly on Egypt: "If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision [by Egypt that the Strait of Tiran would be closed [to Israeli ships and Israeli-bound cargo]."
Kennedy was the first president to approve the sale of defensive US weapons to Israel, specifically Hawk anti-aircraft missiles. But Johnson approved tanks and fighter jets, all vital after the 1967 war when Franceimposed a freeze on sales to Israel. Yehuda Avner recently described on these pages prime minister Levi Eshkol's successful appeal for these weapons on a visit to the LBJ ranch.
Israel won the 1967 war, and Johnson worked to make sure it also won the peace. "I sure as hell want to be careful and not run out on little Israel," Johnson said in a March 1968 conversation with his ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg, according to White House tapes recently released.
Soon after the 1967 war, Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin asked Johnson at the Glassboro Summit why the US supported Israel when there were 80 million Arabs and only three million Israelis. "Because it is a right thing to do," responded the straight-shooting Texan.
The crafting of UN Resolution 242 in November 1967 was done under Johnson's scrutiny. The call for "secure and recognized boundaries" was critical. The American and British drafters of the resolution opposed Israel returning all the territories captured in the war. In September 1968, Johnson explained, "We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders. Some such lines must be agreed to by the neighbors involved."
Goldberg later noted, "Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate." This historic diplomacy was conducted under Johnson's stewardship, as Goldberg related in oral history to the Johnson Library. "I must say for Johnson," Goldberg stated. "He gave me great personal support."
Robert David Johnson, a professor of history at Brooklyn College, recently wrote in The New York Sun, Johnson's policies stemmed more from personal concerns - his friendship with leading Zionists, his belief that America had a moral obligation to bolster Israeli security and his conception of Israel as a frontier land much like his home state of Texas. His personal concerns led him to intervene when he felt that the State or Defense departments had insufficiently appreciated Israel’s diplomatic or military needs."
President Johnson firmly pointed American policy in a pro-Israel direction. In a historical context, the American emergency airlift toIsrael in 1973, the constant diplomatic support, the economic and military assistance and the strategic bonds between the two countries can all be credited to the seeds planted by LBJ.
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The first U.S. Jewish President? Read to the bottom
THIS IS AN AMAZING & INTERESTING READ! IT CAME FROM A RELIABLE SOURCE SO... I ASSUME IT'S ACCURATE.
"A few months ago, the Associated Press reported that newly released tapes from US president Lyndon Johnson's White House office showed LBJ's "personal and often emotional connection to Israel.” The news agency pointed out that during the Johnson presidency (1963-1969), "the United States became Israel’s chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier."
But the news report does little to reveal the full historical extent of Johnson's actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
But the news report does little to reveal the full historical extent of Johnson's actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
I thought I would remember LBJ as the modern civil rights President.
This is interesting!
9 comments:
-
The first U.S. Jewish President? Read to the bottomReply
THIS IS AN AMAZING & INTERESTING READ! IT CAME FROM A RELIABLE SOURCE SO... I ASSUME IT'S ACCURATE.
"A few months ago, the Associated Press reported that newly released tapes from US president Lyndon Johnson's White House office showed LBJ's "personal and often emotional connection to Israel.” The news agency pointed out that during the Johnson presidency (1963-1969), "the United States became Israel’s chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier."
But the news report does little to reveal the full historical extent of Johnson's actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
Most students of the Arab-Israeli conflict can identify Johnson as the president during the 1967 war. But few know about LBJ's actions to rescue hundreds of endangered Jews during the Holocaust - actions that could have thrown him out of Congress and into jail. Indeed, the title of "Righteous Gentile" is certainly appropriate in the case of the Texan, whose centennial year is being commemorated this year.
Appropriately enough, the annual Jerusalem Conference announced this week that it will honor Johnson.
Historians have revealed that Johnson, while serving as a young congressman in 1938 and 1939, arranged for visas to be supplied to Jews in Warsaw, and oversaw the apparently illegal immigration of hundreds of Jews through the port of Galveston, Texas....
A key resource for uncovering LBJ's pro-Jewish activity is the unpublished 1989 doctoral thesis by University of Texas student Louis Gomolak, "Prologue: LBJ's Foreign Affairs Background, 1908-1948.” Johnson's activities were confirmed by other historians in interviews with his wife, family members and political associates.
Research into Johnson's personal history indicates that he inherited his concern for the Jewish people from his family. His aunt Jessie Johnson Hatcher, a major influence on LBJ, was a member of the Zionist Organization of America. According to Gomolak, Aunt Jessie had nurtured LBJ's commitment to befriending Jews for 50 years. As young boy, Lyndon watched his politically active grandfather "Big Sam" and father "Little Sam" seek clemency for Leo Frank, the Jewish victim of a blood libel in Atlanta
Frank was lynched by a mob in 1915, and the Ku Klux Klan in Texas threatened to kill the Johnsons. The Johnsons later told friends that Lyndon's family hid in their cellar while his father and uncles stood guard with shotguns on their porch in case of KKK attacks. Johnson's speech writer later stated, "Johnson often cited Leo Frank's lynching as the source of his opposition to both anti-Semitism and isolationism."
Already in 1934 - four years before Chamberlain's Munich sellout to Hitler - Johnson was keenly alert to the dangers of Nazism and presented a book of essays, 'Nazism: An Assault on Civilization', to the 21-year-old woman he was courting, Claudia Taylor - later known as "Lady Bird" Johnson. It was an incredible engagement present. -
FIVE DAYS after taking office in 1937, LBJ broke with the "Dixiecrats" and supported an immigration bill that would naturalize illegal aliens, mostly Jews from Lithuania and Poland. In 1938, Johnson was told of a young Austrian Jewish musician who was about to be deported from the United States. With an element of subterfuge, LBJ sent him to the US Consulate in Havana to obtain a residency permit. Erich Leinsdorf, the world famous musician and conductor, credited LBJ for saving his live.Reply
That same year, LBJ warned Jewish friend, Jim Novy, that European Jews faced annihilation. "Get as many Jewish people as possible out of Germany and Poland," were Johnson's instructions. Somehow, Johnson provided him with a pile of signed immigration papers that were used to get 42 Jews out of Warsaw.
But that wasn't enough. According to historian James M. Smallwood, Congressman Johnson used legal and sometimes illegal methods to smuggle "hundreds of Jews into Texas, using Galveston as the entry port. -
Enough money could buy false passports and fake visas in Cuba, Mexico and other Latin American countries. Johnson smuggled boatloads and planeloads of Jews into Texas. He hid them in the Texas National Youth Administration. Johnson saved at least four or five hundred Jews, possibly more."Reply
During World War II Johnson joined Novy at a small Austin gathering to sell $65,000 in war bonds. According to Gomolak, Novy and Johnson then raised a very "substantial sum for arms for Jewish underground fighters in Palestine." One source cited by the historian reports that "Novy and Johnson had been secretly shipping heavy crates labeled 'Texas Grapefruit' - but containing arms - to Jewish underground 'freedom fighters' in Palestine."
ON JUNE 4, 1945, Johnson visited Dachau. According to Smallwood, Lady Bird later recalled that when her husband returned home, "he was still shaken, stunned, terrorized, and bursting with an overpowering revulsion and incredulous horror at what he had seen."
A decade later while serving in the Senate, Johnson blocked the Eisenhower administration's attempts to apply sanctions against Israel following the 1956 Sinai Campaign. "The indefatigable Johnson had never ceased pressure on the administration," wrote I.L. "Si" Kenen, the head of AIPAC at the time.
As Senate majority leader, Johnson consistently blocked the anti-Israel initiatives of his fellow Democrat, William Fulbright, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Among Johnson's closest advisers during this period were several strong pro-Israel advocates, including Benjamin Cohen (who 30 years earlier was the liaison between Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis and Chaim Weizmann) and Abe Fortas, the legendary Washington "insider."
Johnson's concern for the Jewish people continued through his presidency. Soon after taking office in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Johnson told an Israeli diplomat, "You have lost a very great friend, but you have found a better one."
Just one month after succeeding Kennedy, LBJ attended the December 1963 dedication of the Agudas Achim Synagogue in Austin. Novy opened the ceremony by saying to Johnson, "We can't thank him enough for all those Jews he got out of Germany during the days of Hitler."
Lady Bird would later describe the day, according to Gomolak: "Person after person plucked at my sleeve and said, 'I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for him. He helped me get out.'" Lady Bird elaborated, "Jews had been woven into the warp and woof of all [Lyndon's] years."
THE PRELUDE to the 1967 war was a terrifying period for Israel, with the US State Department led by the historically unfriendly Dean Rusk urging an evenhanded policy despite Arab threats and acts of aggression. Johnson held no such illusions. After the war he placed the blame firmly on Egypt: -
"If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision [by Egypt that the Strait of Tiran would be closed [to Israeli ships and Israeli-bound cargo]."Reply
Kennedy was the first president to approve the sale of defensive US weapons to Israel, specifically Hawk anti-aircraft missiles. But Johnson approved tanks and fighter jets, all vital after the 1967 war when France imposed a freeze on sales to Israel. Yehuda Avner recently described on these pages prime minister Levi Eshkol's successful appeal for these weapons on a visit to the LBJ ranch.
Israel won the 1967 war, and Johnson worked to make sure it also won the peace. "I sure as hell want to be careful and not run out on little Israel," Johnson said in a March 1968 conversation with his ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg, according to White House tapes recently released.
Soon after the 1967 war, Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin asked Johnson at the Glassboro Summit why the US supported Israel when there were 80 million Arabs and only three million Israelis. "Because it is a right thing to do," responded the straight-shooting Texan.
The crafting of UN Resolution 242 in November 1967 was done under Johnson's scrutiny. The call for "secure and recognized boundaries" was critical. The American and British drafters of the resolution opposed Israel returning all the territories captured in the war. In September 1968, Johnson explained, "We are not the on September 1968, Johnson explained, "We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders. Some such lines must be agreed to by the neighbors involved."
Goldberg later noted, "Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate." This historic diplomacy was conducted under Johnson's stewardship, as Goldberg related in oral history to the Johnson Library. "I must say for Johnson," Goldberg stated. "He gave me great personal support."
Robert David Johnson, a professor of history at Brooklyn College, recently wrote in The New York Sun, Johnson's policies stemmed more from personal concerns - his friendship with leading Zionists, his belief that America had a moral obligation to bolster Israeli security and his conception of Israel as a frontier land much like his home state of Texas. His personal concerns led him to intervene when he felt that the State or Defense departments had insufficiently appreciated Israel’s diplomatic or military needs."
President Johnson firmly pointed American policy in a pro-Israel direction. In a historical context, the American emergency airlift to Israel in 1973, the constant diplomatic support, the economic and military assistance and the strategic bonds between the two countries can all be credited to the seeds planted by LBJ. -
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Lyndon Johnson’s maternal ancestors, the Huffmans, apparently migrated to Frederick, Maryland from Germany sometime in the mid-eighteenth century. Later they moved to Bourbon, Kentucky and eventually settled in Texas in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.10Reply
According to Jewish law, if a person’s mother is Jewish, then that person is automatically Jewish, regardless of the father’s ethnicity or religion. The facts indicate that both of Lyndon Johnson’s great-grandparents, on the maternal side, were Jewish. These were the grandparents of Lyndon’s mother, Rebecca Baines.11 Their names were John S. Huffman and Mary Elizabeth Perrin.12John Huffman’s mother was Suzanne Ament, a common Jewish name. Perrin is also a common Jewish name.
Huffman and Perrin had a daughter, Ruth Ament Huffman,13 who married Joseph Baines14 and together they had a daughter, Rebekah Baines,15 Lyndon Johnson’s mother. The line of Jewish mothers can be traced back three generations in Lyndon Johnson’s family tree. There is little doubt that he was Jewish."
I thought I would remember LBJ as the modern civil rights President.
This is interesting! -
Israel stands in the way and is an obstacle to full Muslim domination of the Middle East. The West fears Islamic aggression (which has been going on since WW1), and is opting for appeasement. Propaganda is being used to try to convince people that Muslims in Israel, and in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Golan Heights, are being mistreated. Islamist forces have conducted maneuvers at the borders of Israel, and have continuously lobbed missiles into Israel. Islam constantly threatens Israel, often using language that proclaims a desire for the complete destruction of Israel. The Arab-Palestinians have spoken to the world, proclaiming parts of Israel to belong to them.Reply
Peace in the Middle East is desired at any cost by the Western Appeasers. The unrest is being blamed on Israel. Islam promises that the Arab-Palestinian claims are the last they will make in Israel. If land is traded for peace, they say, then the unrest in the Middle East will ease, which is a delusion and not reality.
The Western Leaders, fearful that if the Muslims are not appeased the world could plunge into terrorism (which it has already and increasing daily), have decided they need to negotiate with the Arab-Palestinians, grant them the Statehood they suddenly desire, and grant them their demands for the purpose of a delusional peace.
As The West prepares for appeasement, the forces of jihadism are on the rise in Egypt, Syria, Turkey and Iran and extends to Pakistan, Afghanistan and former Russian states. Egypt's peace with Israel has been guaranteed by U.S. involvement, and land for peace. The treaty with Egypt was based on the proposition of the Sinai in 1982 for peace. The Islamists moving into position to gain power in Egypt places the treaty at risk. They have no intention of abiding by its provisions.
The concept of land for peace has failed, as it failed prior to WW2. Islamism does not care about land. Islamism only cares about the destruction of Israel, the destruction of non-Islamic societies, and ultimately the worldwide domination of Islam through a Muslim caliphate.
Israel gives land because they want the Arabs to abide by peace agreements. Israel craves peace, but deep down knows that it is not possible. Islam has made it loud and clear that land for peace is a one way street. Israeli land giveaways are permanent, but Islamic commitments to peace are revoked at any time.
With the current presidential administration in the United States, and the liberal socialists in control of the U.N. and Europe, Israel stands alone. No one plans to stand up for Israel's right to exist, as history has proven, the Jewish people have ultimately been abandoned by the world nations. The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist parties are working to take an absolute majority in Egypt and other Muslim countries, but The West has fallen for the propaganda that claims these parties are moderate and pragmatic. ISIS has proven that this approach is wrong and detrimental to peaceful coexistence.
The fact is, the rising Islamist control over the Muslim nations has no intention of respecting treaties, or Israel's right to exist. They are waiting for conflict, and then will blame it on Israel. Talks are doomed to failure. The Islamists want it that way or the highway.
Land for Peace fails. Liberalism fails. Only a strong and direct military posture with no-holds-barred that stands up against the rising threat will succeed. . . but the appeasers refuse to learn from history, and like Neville Chamberlain with Germany, Barack Obama and his fellow appeasers are positioning the world for a new world conflict that could turn the world to ashes.
It is enough that they the Arabs got Jordan as the Arab State after taking it from the allocation as territory for the Jewish people according to international treaties and laws from 1920. -
The idea was simple: promise peace in exchange for an invitation into the Jewish state to govern the Arab population living there. Then, kill the Jews.Reply
Is it possible for one country A to cause another country B to assist its own enemies and commit suicide? Yes, so long as certain conditions obtain.
By "committing suicide" I mean that since the people who compose the organs of state feel duty-bound to carry out the orders of their superiors, what is needed, mechanically, is for country A to corrupt the political leadership and the media of country B. If this is attained, then country A, through the corrupted political leaders and media in country B, can cause the organs of state in country B to assist the enemies of country B.
A scenario where this would be maximally easy is one where country B is very small and has lots of enemies, whereas country A is very large – at the limit, a superpower (e.g. the United States). A superpower will certainly have the wherewithal to corrupt the leadership and the media of a small country, in which case it can make that leadership surrender Gaza and the West Bank to terrorists who never stop firing at its civilians, and whose ideology is the total extermination of those civilians.
The idea was
simple:
promise peace in exchange for an invitation into the Jewish state to govern the Arab population living there. Then,
kill the Jews.
In bringing
the PLO into the Jewish state,
Israeli leaders revived
the PLO.
Anybody critical of Oslo was loudly equated by the Israeli government and media with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists as an ‘enemy of peace.’
Since May 2003,
the Israeli government cannot claim to be unaware that the PLO is a continuation of Adolph Hitler’s
Final Solution
No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel -
David Ben Gurion
(David Ben-Gurion was the first Prime Minister of Israel and widely hailed as the State’s main founder).
“No Jew is entitled to give up the right of establishing [i.e. settling] the Jewish Nation in all of the Land of Israel. No Jewish body has such power. Not even all the Jews alive today [i.e. the entire Jewish People] have the power to cede any part of the country or homeland whatsoever. This is a right vouchsafed or reserved for the Jewish Nation throughout all generations. This right cannot be lost or expropriated under any condition or circumstance. Even if at some particular time, there are those who declare that they are relinquishing this right, they have no power nor competence to deprive coming generations of this right. The Jewish nation is neither bound nor governed by such a waiver or renunciation. Our right to the whole of this country is valid, in force and endures forever. And until the Final Redemption has come, we will not budge from this historic right.”
BEN-GURION’S DECLARATION ON THE EXCLUSIVE AND
INALIENABLE JEWISH RIGHT TO THE WHOLE OF
THE LAND OF ISRAEL:
at the Basle Session of the 20th Zionist Congress at Zurich (1937)
“No country in the world exists today by virtue of its ‘right’.
All countries exist today by virtue of their ability to defend themselves against those who seek their destruction.” -
The idea was simple: promise peace in exchange for an invitation into the Jewish state to govern the Arab population living there. Then, kill the Jews.Reply
Is it possible for one country A to cause another country B to assist its own enemies and commit suicide? Yes, so long as certain conditions obtain.
By "committing suicide" I mean that since the people who compose the organs of state feel duty-bound to carry out the orders of their superiors, what is needed, mechanically, is for country A to corrupt the political leadership and the media of country B. If this is attained, then country A, through the corrupted political leaders and media in country B, can cause the organs of state in country B to assist the enemies of country B.
A scenario where this would be maximally easy is one where country B is very small and has lots of enemies, whereas country A is very large – at the limit, a superpower (e.g. the United States). A superpower will certainly have the wherewithal to corrupt the leadership and the media of a small country, in which case it can make that leadership surrender Gaza and the West Bank to terrorists who never stop firing at its civilians, and whose ideology is the total extermination of those civilians.
The idea was
simple:
promise peace in exchange for an invitation into the Jewish state to govern the Arab population living there. Then,
kill the Jews.
In bringing
the PLO into the Jewish state,
Israeli leaders revived
the PLO.
Anybody critical of Oslo was loudly equated by the Israeli government and media with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists as an ‘enemy of peace.’
Since May 2003,
the Israeli government cannot claim to be unaware that the PLO is a continuation of Adolph Hitler’s
Final Solution
No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel -
David Ben Gurion
(David Ben-Gurion was the first Prime Minister of Israel and widely hailed as the State’s main founder).
“No Jew is entitled to give up the right of establishing [i.e. settling] the Jewish Nation in all of the Land of Israel. No Jewish body has such power. Not even all the Jews alive today [i.e. the entire Jewish People] have the power to cede any part of the country or homeland whatsoever. This is a right vouchsafed or reserved for the Jewish Nation throughout all generations. This right cannot be lost or expropriated under any condition or circumstance. Even if at some particular time, there are those who declare that they are relinquishing this right, they have no power nor competence to deprive coming generations of this right. The Jewish nation is neither bound nor governed by such a waiver or renunciation. Our right to the whole of this country is valid, in force and endures forever. And until the Final Redemption has come, we will not budge from this historic right.”
BEN-GURION’S DECLARATION ON THE EXCLUSIVE AND
INALIENABLE JEWISH RIGHT TO THE WHOLE OF
THE LAND OF ISRAEL:
at the Basle Session of the 20th Zionist Congress at Zurich (1937)
“No country in the world exists today by virtue of its ‘right’.
All countries exist today by virtue of their ability to defend themselves against those who seek their destruction.” -
Israel stands in the way and is an obstacle to full Muslim domination of the Middle East. The West fears Islamic aggression (which has been going on since WW1), and is opting for appeasement. Propaganda is being used to try to convince people that Muslims in Israel, and in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Golan Heights, are being mistreated. Islamist forces have conducted maneuvers at the borders of Israel, and have continuously lobbed missiles into Israel. Islam constantly threatens Israel, often using language that proclaims a desire for the complete destruction of Israel. The Arab-Palestinians have spoken to the world, proclaiming parts of Israel to belong to them.
Peace in the Middle East is desired at any cost by the Western Appeasers. The unrest is being blamed on Israel. Islam promises that the Arab-Palestinian claims are the last they will make in Israel. If land is traded for peace, they say, then the unrest in the Middle East will ease, which is a delusion and not reality.
The Western Leaders, fearful that if the Muslims are not appeased the world could plunge into terrorism (which it has already and increasing daily), have decided they need to negotiate with the Arab-Palestinians, grant them the Statehood they suddenly desire, and grant them their demands for the purpose of a delusional peace.
As The West prepares for appeasement, the forces of jihadism are on the rise in Egypt, Syria, Turkey and Iran and extends to Pakistan, Afghanistan and former Russian states. Egypt's peace with Israel has been guaranteed by U.S. involvement, and land for peace. The treaty with Egypt was based on the proposition of the Sinai in 1982 for peace. The Islamists moving into position to gain power in Egypt places the treaty at risk. They have no intention of abiding by its provisions.
The concept of land for peace has failed, as it failed prior to WW2. Islamism does not care about land. Islamism only cares about the destruction of Israel, the destruction of non-Islamic societies, and ultimately the worldwide domination of Islam through a Muslim caliphate.
Israel gives land because they want the Arabs to abide by peace agreements. Israel craves peace, but deep down knows that it is not possible. Islam has made it loud and clear that land for peace is a one way street. Israeli land giveaways are permanent, but Islamic commitments to peace are revoked at any time.
With the current presidential administration in the United States, and the liberal socialists in control of the U.N. and Europe, Israel stands alone. No one plans to stand up for Israel's right to exist, as history has proven, the Jewish people have ultimately been abandoned by the world nations. The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist parties are working to take an absolute majority in Egypt and other Muslim countries, but The West has fallen for the propaganda that claims these parties are moderate and pragmatic. ISIS has proven that this approach is wrong and detrimental to peaceful coexistence.
The fact is, the rising Islamist control over the Muslim nations has no intention of respecting treaties, or Israel's right to exist. They are waiting for conflict, and then will blame it on Israel. Talks are doomed to failure. The Islamists want it that way or the highway.
Land for Peace fails. Liberalism fails. Only a strong and direct military posture with no-holds-barred that stands up against the rising threat will succeed. . . but the appeasers refuse to learn from history, and like Neville Chamberlain with Germany, Barack Obama and his fellow appeasers are positioning the world for a new world conflict that could turn the world to ashes.
It is enough that they the Arabs got Jordan as the Arab State after taking it from the allocation as territory for the Jewish people according to international treaties and laws from 1920.
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