Al Schwimmer, who died on Saturday at 94 and whose funeral was held on Monday, was branded a “legend” by President Shimon Peres for his vital life’s work in Israeli aviation. This extract from the book Start- Up Nation, the best-seller on Israel’s “economic miracle” by Dan Senor and former Jerusalem Post staffer Saul Singer, is posted as a tribute to Al Schwimmer and an inspiration to Jewish ingenuity and support for Israel:
...Al Schwimmer was a raconteur, who’d been captivated by the airline business in its earliest days, when flying machines were an exotic novelty.
He was working for TWA when the United States entered World War II and the entire airline was drafted into the war effort. Though not officially in the US Air Force, Schwimmer and his fellow fliers were given military ranks and uniforms and spent the war ferrying troops, equipment, and the occasional movie star all over the world.
During the war, Schwimmer’s identity as a Jew meant little to him and had almost no influence on his thinking or way of life. But seeing a liberated concentration camp and the newsreel footage of countless bodies and speaking with Jewish refugees in Europe trying to reach Palestine transformed him.
Almost overnight, Schwimmer became a committed Zionist.
When he heard that the British in Palestine were turning back ships full of European Jewish refugees, Schwimmer came up with what he was convinced was a better way: fly over the British Navy patrols and smuggle the Jews in by landing them at hidden air-fields. He tracked down Ben-Gurion’s secret emissary in New York and pitched him the idea. For months, the representative of the Haganah, the main underground Jewish army in Palestine, sat on the idea. But when it became clear that the British would soon withdraw and a fullscale Arab-Jewish war over Israel’s independence would ensue, the Haganah contacted Schwimmer.
By this time, they had an even more urgent need than smuggling refugees: building an air force. The Haganah did not have a single aircraft and would be completely exposed to the Egyptian air force. Could Schwimmer buy and repair fighter planes and smuggle them into Israel? Schwimmer told Ben-Gurion’s agents that he’d start immediately...
Within days, Schwimmer had tracked down a handful of Jewish pilots and mechanics from the United States and the United Kingdom, for what he told them would be the first civilian Jewish air-line. He was obsessed with secrecy, and did not even want to bring them into the fold about the idea of building fighter planes. Few were even informed that the planes were destined for Israel.
When outsiders inquired, the cover story was that they were building a national airline for Panama and would ferry cattle to Europe.
Though the FBI impounded the largest aircraft he bought – three Constellations – Schwimmer and his gang succeeded in smuggling out other aircraft, some by literally flying over the heads of the FBI agents who’d demanded that the planes be grounded. At the last minute, the Haganah cut a separate deal to buy German Messerschmitts from Czechoslovakia, which Schwimmer was also drafted to fly to Israel.
WHEN THE 1948 War of Independence came, Schwimmer’s aircraft fought off Egyptian planes that were bombing Tel Aviv. In certain battles, the barely trained Israeli pilots were instrumental in ensuring that the Negev desert – a relatively large triangular swath of land starting a few miles south of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, between the Egyptian Sinai and Jordan – became part of Israel.
After Israel prevailed in the War of Independence, Schwimmer returned to the United States...
...By 1950, Schwimmer had joined forces with Shimon Peres, then a young Ben-Gurion protégé working for the new Israeli Defense Ministry. Peres had tried to buy thirty surplus Mustang aircraft for the Israeli Air Force, but the United States had decided to destroy the planes instead. Their wings were sliced off and their fuselages cut in two.
So Schwimmer’s team bought the cutup planes at cost from a Texas junk dealer, reconstructed them, and made sure they had all their parts and were operational.
Then the team disassembled the planes again, packed them in crates marked “Irrigation Equipment,” and shipped them to Israel.
But because of the urgency with which they had to get the aircraft to Israel, a few of the planes were left assembled, and Schwimmer and Peres flew these to Tel Aviv. And that is how they found themselves in 1951 talking about a future Israeli aviation industry.
Peres became captivated by Schwimmer’s ideas for creating an aircraft industry in Israel that would serve a purpose beyond a short-term military strategy...
Schwimmer insisted that in a world flooded with surplus aircraft from the war, there was no reason why Israel could not buy planes cheaply, repair and improve them, and sell them to militaries and airlines in many countries, while building Israel’s own commercial industry.
...Unbeknownst to Schwimmer, Ben- Gurion had recently instructed the Technion to build an aeronautical engineering department. In giving the order, he’d said, “a high standard of living; a rich culture; spiritual, political and economic independence...are not possible without aerial control.”
... Within five years, Bedek, the airplane maintenance company [Schwimmer ] founded with two Israelis, became the largest private employer in the country.
By 1960 Bedek was producing a modified version of the French Fouga fighter plane. At an official unveiling and test flight of the plane, dubbed Tzukit (“swallow” in Hebrew), Ben- Gurion told Schwimmer, “This place isn’t just Bedek anymore. You’ve gone beyond repairs. You guys have built a jet. The new name should be Israel Aircraft Industries.” Peres, who by now was deputy defense minister, translated the new company name.
Peres and Ben-Gurion had managed to recruit an American Jew to provide one of the biggest long-term jolts to Israel’s economy, all without asking anyone for one investment dollar.
Showing posts with label History Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History Israel. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
New Section of Ancient Sewer Discovered in Jerusalem
From TIP:
Jerusalem, Jan 25 – Israeli archaeologists have discovered a new section of an 2,000-year-old drainage channel that links the ancient City of David to the plaza in front of the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site.
“It connects the dots between the where Jews lived in the ancient city of Jerusalem, the city of David, and the plaza. For the first time, they connect,” said Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat in an interview on Fox News.
Archaeologist Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and his team first uncovered the sewer in 2007. The walls of the tunnel, made of ashlar stones 3 feet deep, reach a height of 10 feet in some places and are covered by heavy stone slabs that were the road's paving stones.
The channel also served as an escape hatch for Jews desperate to flee the conquering Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 CE. As the temple was being destroyed, people took shelter in the drainage channel and lived inside it until they fled Jerusalem through its southern end, the historian Josephus Flavius wrote in “The War of the Jews.”
...The entire tunnel could be opened to the public within a year.
Jerusalem, Jan 25 – Israeli archaeologists have discovered a new section of an 2,000-year-old drainage channel that links the ancient City of David to the plaza in front of the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site.
“It connects the dots between the where Jews lived in the ancient city of Jerusalem, the city of David, and the plaza. For the first time, they connect,” said Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat in an interview on Fox News.
Archaeologist Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and his team first uncovered the sewer in 2007. The walls of the tunnel, made of ashlar stones 3 feet deep, reach a height of 10 feet in some places and are covered by heavy stone slabs that were the road's paving stones.
The channel also served as an escape hatch for Jews desperate to flee the conquering Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 CE. As the temple was being destroyed, people took shelter in the drainage channel and lived inside it until they fled Jerusalem through its southern end, the historian Josephus Flavius wrote in “The War of the Jews.”
...The entire tunnel could be opened to the public within a year.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
The History and the Flotilla
From Fox News, 2 June 2010:
Glenn Beck talks about Israel's history, America's role in its history and the truth behind the people who organized the "Freedom Flotilla" (5 video clips, each 10 minutes).
Glenn Beck talks about Israel's history, America's role in its history and the truth behind the people who organized the "Freedom Flotilla" (5 video clips, each 10 minutes).
Monday, March 08, 2010
Arab Recognition of the Legitimacy of Israel is a Prerequisite for Peace
From BESA Center Perspectives Papers No. 100, March 4, 2010, by Kenneth J. Bialkin*:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Middle East peace diplomacy aimed at ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the broader Arab-Israeli conflict is bound to fail yet again unless the process is reconfigured to emphasize, as its centerpiece, Arab recognition of the Jewish People’s ancient claims to their ancestral homeland and the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. Waiting for this necessary change of heart among Palestinians and other Arabs concerning Israel’s legitimate Jewish character and national future is the wisest route to peace.
American diplomacy has been very active, particularly in the last three decades, in trying to bring peace between Arabs and Israelis. ...
...The peace treaties signed by Egypt and Jordan demonstrate that leaders of the Arab world can show the courage to accept Israel as a sovereign neighbor. ...the Jordanian and Egyptian arrangements remain in place and they are important for regional stability.
...some Arab countries maintain contacts with Israel or Israeli companies for mutual benefits which involve commercial, social, intellectual, medical, educational or strategic interests.
...The prospect that Iran may become a nuclear power has roiled the Sunni Arab world to the point where many Arab countries quietly side with Israel in seeking to block Iran from fulfilling its apparent nuclear aspirations.
The Palestinian issue remains unsolved despite the fact that the basic issues between Israel and the Palestinians are simple to state: a two-state solution; borders; Jerusalem; mutual recognition; and “End of Conflict.” Other issues such as Arab refugees, Israeli settlements, and so on, are supposed to be “soluble” in the context of a true “End of Conflict” agreement. So we are told.
But the question must be asked: If this is accurate, why has there been no real peace progress? In all previous peace initiatives, the magic-bullet formula was for Israel to make concessions so that a sovereign Palestinian state could be established. Israel was pressed to yield land and forego settlements in areas considered its homeland, which were acquired in wars following Arab aggression. The failure of those initiatives was almost always assigned to Israel’s refusal to grant the Palestinian Arabs what they “deserved,” namely, a state and relaxed security restrictions. The policy of successive US administrations to press Israel for unilateral concessions was vigorously supported by the United Nations and most of the international community where sympathy for Palestinian rhetoric can be taken for granted.
The answer to the question above is this: A peace process which rests upon Israel’s unilateral concessions is doomed to fail – unless and until the world also demands that the Arab states (including the Palestinians) recognize Israel’s legitimacy and sovereignty, explicitly and openly. Contrary to the myth that Israeli “occupation” is the result of Israeli aggression and a quest for “Lebensraum,” the Arab world must come to recognize that the Jewish claim for a state and for land and recognition did not begin in the twentieth century and is not simply compensation for the suffering of the Holocaust.
The Jewish claim for land and recognition derive from the days of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, King David and the prophets. This claim has abided for more than 3,000 years, persevering through the creation and universal reverence of the Bible. The Bible reports that in his first year (516 BCE), Cyrus, the King of Persia, in order to reverse the sacking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 597 BCE, and to fulfill the prophesy of Jeremiah, proclaimed that he had been charged by the Lord to build a house in Jerusalem and to send the Jews in his kingdom to “go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel (he is the God) which is in Jerusalem” (Second Book of Chronicles 36:23). The revival of Zionism more than 100 years ago is a part of that history and its legitimacy lies in the continuous belief and aspirations of the Jewish people.
Israel has recently made it clear that any peace agreement with the Palestinians must include a clear recognition and acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state in the region. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said in his famous address in June 2009 at the BESA Center that “A fundamental prerequisite for ending the conflict is a public, binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish People.”
Netanyahu made it clear that his government has joined previous Israeli governments in accepting a demilitarized Palestinian state, which would include arrangements to protect Israel’s security concerns. (Israel still has immediate and more distant neighbors that abide by the 1967 Khartoum declaration of “No Recognition, No Negotiation and No Peace with Israel.”)
Neither the UN, the international community nor the US has ever demanded unequivocal acceptance by the Arabs to recognize and live in peace with Israel. The US has never insisted that recognition and acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state be advanced as an independent demand in advance of an end to the conflict.
After years of unsuccessful peace strategies, it is time for a change. There are many reasons why a correction of strategy has a good chance to produce peaceful settlement for the true benefit of Israel and the Arab world. Peace is not a zero sum game where there can be only one winner and loser. The failure to convince the Arab world to internalize the right of the Jews to share the Land of Israel and to put an end to the conflict – means the conflict and the state of war will continue.
...Israel has shown willingness for major concessions under circumstances of a full peace, while displaying great reluctance for such concessions in the absence of real peace. Israel’s experience with unilateral concessions has not been good and is not likely to be repeated. ....
...For too long, Israel’s right to be recognized and accepted by the Arab world has been ignored by the international community and should no longer be ignored. The UN should be ashamed that each year it countenances General Assembly resolutions advocating the expulsion of a member state and similar outrages by a gaggle of states whose societies deny their own citizens fundamental human rights.
The US should lead the international community to correct a long-term injustice: Arab lack of respect for the legitimacy of the State of Israel and for the historical contributions and rights of the Jewish people. This is the most important prerequisite for peace.
*Kenneth J. Bialkin, a lawyer, is Chairman of the America-Israel Friendship League, former national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, and former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Middle East peace diplomacy aimed at ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the broader Arab-Israeli conflict is bound to fail yet again unless the process is reconfigured to emphasize, as its centerpiece, Arab recognition of the Jewish People’s ancient claims to their ancestral homeland and the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. Waiting for this necessary change of heart among Palestinians and other Arabs concerning Israel’s legitimate Jewish character and national future is the wisest route to peace.
American diplomacy has been very active, particularly in the last three decades, in trying to bring peace between Arabs and Israelis. ...
...The peace treaties signed by Egypt and Jordan demonstrate that leaders of the Arab world can show the courage to accept Israel as a sovereign neighbor. ...the Jordanian and Egyptian arrangements remain in place and they are important for regional stability.
...some Arab countries maintain contacts with Israel or Israeli companies for mutual benefits which involve commercial, social, intellectual, medical, educational or strategic interests.
...The prospect that Iran may become a nuclear power has roiled the Sunni Arab world to the point where many Arab countries quietly side with Israel in seeking to block Iran from fulfilling its apparent nuclear aspirations.
The Palestinian issue remains unsolved despite the fact that the basic issues between Israel and the Palestinians are simple to state: a two-state solution; borders; Jerusalem; mutual recognition; and “End of Conflict.” Other issues such as Arab refugees, Israeli settlements, and so on, are supposed to be “soluble” in the context of a true “End of Conflict” agreement. So we are told.
But the question must be asked: If this is accurate, why has there been no real peace progress? In all previous peace initiatives, the magic-bullet formula was for Israel to make concessions so that a sovereign Palestinian state could be established. Israel was pressed to yield land and forego settlements in areas considered its homeland, which were acquired in wars following Arab aggression. The failure of those initiatives was almost always assigned to Israel’s refusal to grant the Palestinian Arabs what they “deserved,” namely, a state and relaxed security restrictions. The policy of successive US administrations to press Israel for unilateral concessions was vigorously supported by the United Nations and most of the international community where sympathy for Palestinian rhetoric can be taken for granted.
The answer to the question above is this: A peace process which rests upon Israel’s unilateral concessions is doomed to fail – unless and until the world also demands that the Arab states (including the Palestinians) recognize Israel’s legitimacy and sovereignty, explicitly and openly. Contrary to the myth that Israeli “occupation” is the result of Israeli aggression and a quest for “Lebensraum,” the Arab world must come to recognize that the Jewish claim for a state and for land and recognition did not begin in the twentieth century and is not simply compensation for the suffering of the Holocaust.
The Jewish claim for land and recognition derive from the days of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, King David and the prophets. This claim has abided for more than 3,000 years, persevering through the creation and universal reverence of the Bible. The Bible reports that in his first year (516 BCE), Cyrus, the King of Persia, in order to reverse the sacking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 597 BCE, and to fulfill the prophesy of Jeremiah, proclaimed that he had been charged by the Lord to build a house in Jerusalem and to send the Jews in his kingdom to “go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel (he is the God) which is in Jerusalem” (Second Book of Chronicles 36:23). The revival of Zionism more than 100 years ago is a part of that history and its legitimacy lies in the continuous belief and aspirations of the Jewish people.
Israel has recently made it clear that any peace agreement with the Palestinians must include a clear recognition and acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state in the region. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said in his famous address in June 2009 at the BESA Center that “A fundamental prerequisite for ending the conflict is a public, binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish People.”
Netanyahu made it clear that his government has joined previous Israeli governments in accepting a demilitarized Palestinian state, which would include arrangements to protect Israel’s security concerns. (Israel still has immediate and more distant neighbors that abide by the 1967 Khartoum declaration of “No Recognition, No Negotiation and No Peace with Israel.”)
Neither the UN, the international community nor the US has ever demanded unequivocal acceptance by the Arabs to recognize and live in peace with Israel. The US has never insisted that recognition and acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state be advanced as an independent demand in advance of an end to the conflict.
After years of unsuccessful peace strategies, it is time for a change. There are many reasons why a correction of strategy has a good chance to produce peaceful settlement for the true benefit of Israel and the Arab world. Peace is not a zero sum game where there can be only one winner and loser. The failure to convince the Arab world to internalize the right of the Jews to share the Land of Israel and to put an end to the conflict – means the conflict and the state of war will continue.
...Israel has shown willingness for major concessions under circumstances of a full peace, while displaying great reluctance for such concessions in the absence of real peace. Israel’s experience with unilateral concessions has not been good and is not likely to be repeated. ....
...For too long, Israel’s right to be recognized and accepted by the Arab world has been ignored by the international community and should no longer be ignored. The UN should be ashamed that each year it countenances General Assembly resolutions advocating the expulsion of a member state and similar outrages by a gaggle of states whose societies deny their own citizens fundamental human rights.
The US should lead the international community to correct a long-term injustice: Arab lack of respect for the legitimacy of the State of Israel and for the historical contributions and rights of the Jewish people. This is the most important prerequisite for peace.
*Kenneth J. Bialkin, a lawyer, is Chairman of the America-Israel Friendship League, former national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, and former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
A West Australian Jew's view of the Arab-Israel Conflict
From an interview by Trish Duke of Twin Cities FM, the community radio station for the cities of Joondalup and Wanneroo (north of Perth), on the 13th July 2009:
Trish:
The Arab-Israel conflict seems to have been around forever. It certainly attracts a lot of attention in the world media. Almost every week we hear of another terrorist act, violent coup or some political machination in the region.
Our guest today is Steve Lieblich, an active member of the Jewish community in Perth. We’re going to get his point of view about this intractable conflict....
Trish then goes on to ask the following questions.
1. What does being a Jew mean for you in Australia?
2. What does Israel mean to Jews in Australia/worldwide?
3. How did modern Israel come to be established?
4. When did the Arab-Israel conflict start?
5. We’ve heard a lot recently about pressure for Israel to freeze the growth of settlements in the West Bank. Will Israel do that?
6. Why do you think the Arabs continue to oppose Israel?
7. Can Israeli and Arab aspirations be reconciled?
Click here to download the full 22-minute interview (42MB), complete with a brief musical interlude.
Trish:
The Arab-Israel conflict seems to have been around forever. It certainly attracts a lot of attention in the world media. Almost every week we hear of another terrorist act, violent coup or some political machination in the region.
Our guest today is Steve Lieblich, an active member of the Jewish community in Perth. We’re going to get his point of view about this intractable conflict....
Trish then goes on to ask the following questions.
1. What does being a Jew mean for you in Australia?
2. What does Israel mean to Jews in Australia/worldwide?
3. How did modern Israel come to be established?
4. When did the Arab-Israel conflict start?
5. We’ve heard a lot recently about pressure for Israel to freeze the growth of settlements in the West Bank. Will Israel do that?
6. Why do you think the Arabs continue to oppose Israel?
7. Can Israeli and Arab aspirations be reconciled?
Click here to download the full 22-minute interview (42MB), complete with a brief musical interlude.
Friday, May 23, 2008
The Mike Wallace 1958 Interview of Abba Eban
From the University of Texas website, 12 April 1958 (50 years ago):
As Israel celebrates its tenth anniversary, Abba Eban, Israel's ambassador to the United States, talks to Wallace about Arab nations, the Arab refugee problem, Egypt's President Nasser, Jews in America, and the charge that Israel threatens world peace with a policy of territorial expansion.
Follow the link to the whole 4,300-word interview, which is well worth viewing or reading. Eban was not only Israel's outstanding spokesman but ranks with Winston Churchill as among the most eloquent English-language statesmen of recent times.
As Israel celebrates its tenth anniversary, Abba Eban, Israel's ambassador to the United States, talks to Wallace about Arab nations, the Arab refugee problem, Egypt's President Nasser, Jews in America, and the charge that Israel threatens world peace with a policy of territorial expansion.
Follow the link to the whole 4,300-word interview, which is well worth viewing or reading. Eban was not only Israel's outstanding spokesman but ranks with Winston Churchill as among the most eloquent English-language statesmen of recent times.
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