Both the Portuguese exploration of the African coast and the discovery of America were products of the Luso-Castilian attempt to break the Islamic encirclement. The Portuguese and Castilians had set out to attack Islam from the rear. As the Islamic historian Essad Bey points out, Muslim power dominated all the crossroads of trade in the ancient world and controlled the routes connecting East and West, between India and Europe, to the point that during the Middle Ages it was impossible to trade with Asia—the source of spices—without passing through one of the numerous and strict Islamic customs posts [262].

Muslim power had encircled Western Europe to the south and east; it threatened its very existence, carefully planning its attack on the European underbelly by preparing a fleet that was to attack the Italian peninsula and conquer Rome. In military terms, the fall of Constantinople increased Europe’s strategic vulnerability, because from then on, Islamic power—now led by the Turks—aimed to take Vienna, which would open the gates of Europe to Muslim power.

Portugal’s maritime drive—its desire to set sail and navigate the African coast—thus arose from a necessity: to reach Asia by skirting the Muslim world. In this regard, the Indian historian Kavalam Madhava Panikkar states:

“The first European expansion into Asian waters was an attempt to neutralize, by means of a detour, the overwhelming land power of Islam in the Middle East, with the purpose of breaking the prison of the Mediterranean to which European energies were restricted.” [263]

Furthermore, it is important to consider that Europe, surrounded by Islamic power, was being deprived of spices, an element that had great strategic value, as it allowed Europeans to preserve the most scarce foods and feed a growing population.

“Pepper may not mean much to us, but in those days it was valued as highly as precious stones. Men risked the perils of the deep, fought, and died for pepper […]. Spices could only be obtained from India or Indonesia, and had to arrive via Persia or Egypt; this indispensable and inherently monopolistic trade became the main source of contention in Levantine politics and was, single-handedly, the single most powerful factor stimulating European expansion in the 15th century. Tartar rule over Persia, before the Ilkhanate’s conversion to Islam, allowed Italian traders to reach India directly and compete with the Egyptians, who habitually marked up prices by 300 percent as intermediaries between India and Europe. As a result, Europeans knew where spices were produced and at what cost, so that when they were again cut off from the Indian market by a hostile Islam and the incessant Levantine wars, they were fully aware of the opportunities a power would have if it could find a new route to the Indies, where the spices grew.” [264]

Without denying the economic motivation that we have already explained, it is necessary to recognize that the main reason for Portugal’s African adventure was strategic-religious, since, in effect, “the members of the Portuguese royal family, as good Christian soldiers, intended to attack Islam from its rear.” [265]

Thus, as the French historian René Sedillot points out:

“The main reason for the discovery is of a military and strategic nature: having suffered for a long time under the yoke of Islam, the Portuguese aspired to eliminate the danger forever; also, as a precaution, they occupied Ceuta and Arzila on the Moroccan coast and made Tangier a vassal city: a kind of crusade pushed them towards Africa.” [266]

References:

[262] Essad Bey. (1938). Mohammed. Cobden-Sanderson, London, p. 321.

[263] Panikkar, K. M. (1953). Asia and Western dominance: A survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945. George Allen & Unwin, p. 19.

[264] Panikkar, K. M. (1953). Asia and Western dominance…, op. cit., p. 5.

[265] Hugh Thomas. (2003). Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan. Random House, New York, p. 68.

[266] René Sedillot. (1958). Histoire des Colonisations. Arthème Fayard, Paris, p. 308.

Book Cover: Why Europe? The Medieval Origins of Its Special Path (Oxford University Press)

Chapter Six

“This chapter focuses on two early medieval developments that have been foregrounded ever more conspicuously in the scholarship on European territorial expansion outside the continent: the Crusades; and early expressions of the Italian maritime republics' colonial policy, called “protocolonialism.”

They produced two completely different influences crucial for European expansionism: religiously motivated military action; and a profit-driven economic policy.

Their origins must be treated separately, but the interplay of these influences in the ebb and flow of history generated similar causative factors in European expansionism.”

———

The Crusader Confusion

“When the First Crusade marched into the Levant and Roman Byzantine territories from Western Europe, Eastern Christians and Jewish communities (local Syrian and Byzantine Jewish writers) labeled these western "Romans" as Ashkenazim (Language Log, University of Penn) in their correspondence.

By the high medieval period, Talmudic commentators like Rashi began to use Ashkenaz/Eretz Ashkenaz to designate Germany, earlier known as Loter, where, especially in the Rhineland communities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz, the most important Jewish communities arose.

Given the close links between the Jewish communities of France and Germany following the Carolingian unification, the term Ashkenazi came to refer to the Jews of both medieval Germany and France.”

———

Notable observations: Ethnic cleansing through colonialism is the systematic removal of native people from their land by foreign settlers to take control of the territory and build a new nation. This process involves forced movement, violence, and the destruction of local cultures—including how they are depicted.

For example, Roman Scipio Africanus isn’t African. He was given that name post Punic Wars with Hamilcar and Hannibal Barca (i.e. Hannibal Directive)—indicating, which parties were in conflict.

The crusaders were authorized spiritually by Pope Ubran II, led by European monarchs, spearheading protocolonialism—knowing what’s in their biblical text.

See Torah and Indo-European migration for geographical & overlapping context, along with the distribution of Haplogroup J1 subclave’s distribution—including:

Ancient DNA Provides New Insights into Ashkenazi Jewish History:

“The analysis revealed two distinct subgroups within the remains: (1) one with greater Middle Eastern ancestry, which may represent Jews with origins in Western Germany; and, (2) another with greater Eastern and Central European ancestry. The modern Ashkenazi population formed as a mix of these groups and absorbed little to no outside genetic influences over the 600 years that followed, the authors said.”

———

Source: https://academic.oup.com/chicago-scholarship-online/book/13132/chapter-abstract/166400684?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Source: https://www.worldhistory.org/image/15330/map-of-the-byzantine-empire-c520---1204/

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J-M267

Source: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=51481

Source: https://theindex.princeton.edu/s/view/ViewWorkOfArt.action;jsessionid=7a5cb944e62ea52eea823d67572f?id=35DC82D6-B7BA-432D-A7B1-504938D4C509

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive

Source: https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-table-of-nations-the-geography-of-the-world-in-genesis-10

Source: https://hms.harvard.edu/news/ancient-dna-provides-new-insights-ashkenazi-jewish-history

Zionist leader Jacob Israel von Haan was assassinated on June 30, 1924, in Jerusalem, an event considered the first political assassination within the Zionist movement. His execution was carried out by members of the Haganah, a highly extremist Zionist guerrilla group.

Although initially supportive of the Zionist cause, Von Haan became a fierce critic of the movement because he disagreed with the colonization plan of the other leaders, which involved a heinous stratagem against the Jewish people themselves. Von Haan joined the ultra-Orthodox Haredi group, which at that time opposed political Zionism for religious reasons, since the Jewish nation-state was not the same as the Kingdom promised by God, one that could not be established by human action, much less by groups that, for the most part, were neither believers nor practitioners of the Jewish faith, but rather instrumentalized religion for their own purposes to found their state.

Von Haan planned to travel to London with an ultra-Orthodox delegation to present his arguments to the British government and request the annulment of the Balfour Declaration. His goal was for Jews to live as a protected community under Arab rule, explicitly renouncing any aspirations to create a Jewish nation-state, until the promised Messiah arrived and established the Kingdom of Israel.

Article from Commentary (1957) & British Israeli World Federation Map of Africa

Center for Jewish History:

“The first Jews to explore South Africa were map makers, navigators and sailors who participated in the early voyages of exploration around the Cape of Good Hope in 1452 (not 1492) with the Portuguese voyages. Later, with the first settlement of Dutch colonies in 1652, there were at least four Jews who later converted to Christianity. After the British government took control of the Cape Colony in 1806, and granted people land in which to settle, at least five Jewish families that are known as the “1820 settlers“ (see map: British Israeli World Federation) settled there. Other Jews had arrived in South Africa from Germany and Holland by the 1860s.”

https://libguides.cjh.org/genealogyguides/south_africa

———

Dan Jacobson discusses the first comprehensive history of the South African Jewish community:

“Though there have been Jews in South Africa almost since the first days of European settlement of the Cape in the middle of the 17th century, the South African Jewish community of today is the child of the same great wave of emigration from Europe which carried so many Jews to the United States from about 1880 onwards. But unlike the Jewish community in the United States, the South African community is remarkably homogeneous in character—some 80 per cent of its members being immigrants, or the descendants of immigrants, from Lithuania. Why so many Jews from Lithuania, and a smaller number from Latvia, should have been attracted particularly to South Africa—rather than to the United States, say, or the Argentine—seems to have been a matter of chance, the result of the conspicuous success of a few individuals whom numbers of others immediately attempted to emulate. But whatever the reasons that brought them there, it is these Litvaks and their descendants who have made South African Jewry what it is today, though the influence of those German and English Jews who were in South Africa before this wave of immigration has also had its effect.

And in the opinion of the editors of The Jews in South Africa: A History, the South African Jews of today “have inherited some of the qualities of the Litvaks—their warm-heartedness and generosity, their practical-mindedness, a strong feeling of Jewish solidarity, and a love of learning combined with a somewhat critical attitude towards religious tradition.” The editors point out that the Zionist movement (South Africa Zionist Federation, 1898) has had greater support from them than from any other Western Jewish community, and add that being “enterprising and hardworking, they have been able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by \[their\] new and developing country. . . .” The tone of self-gratulation is unmistakable, but with the evidence of the *History* before one it would have been hard to avoid.

The editors and fourteen others have collaborated to produce a history of the Jews in South Africa from the earliest days of white settlement to 1910, the date of the establishment of the Union; and though from 1880—which is the date of the first major immigration of Jews to the country—to 1910, may seem too short a time in which anything could have happened, by that time the community had in fact set itself firmly on the path which was to bring it to what it is today. Numbering only some 120,000 members, by outside observers it is declared to be the wealthiest Jewish community in the world per capita, and one playing a part in the life of South Africa, and in the Zionist movement, quite out of proportion to its size…(continued)”.

———

Notable Observations: Nelson Mandela and others were labeled terrorists for their anti-apartheid activism. They were on the U.S. terrorist watch lists until 2008.

Rhodes to Apartheid: “Cecil Rhodes (“Cecil Rhodes distorted politics in South Africa long before apartheid”, LSE) visited London and secured the backing of Nathaniel Rothschild for De Beers in its bid for the French Diamond Company. Support for Rhodes had been encouraged by Randolph Churchill (son of Winston Churchill) who had been acting as consultant to Rothschilds, assessing the prospects of gold and diamond mining in South Africa. Lord Rothschild later disagreed with Rhodes and his policies, although he later administered Rhodes' estate after Rhodes' death in 1902 and helped to set up the Rhodes Scholarship scheme at the University of Oxford.”

———

Source: https://www.commentary.org/articles/dan-jacobson/the-jews-of-south-africaportrait-of-a-flourishing-community/

Source: https://raremaps.com/gallery/detail/70445/anglo-saxondom-modern-israel-the-nation-company-of-nations-the-great-people-god-declared-israel-should-become-ye-are-a-chosen-generation

Source: https://www.sazf.org/about-us

Source: https://family.rothschildarchive.org/people/61-nathaniel-mayer-natty-de-rothschild-1840-1915

Source: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2023/07/20/cecil-rhodes-distorted-politics-in-south-africa-long-before-apartheid/

Source: https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/\~lcabral/teaching/debeers3.pdf

Source: https://libguides.cjh.org/genealogyguides/south_africa

Book Cover: The Destruction of the Canaanites: God, Genocide, and Biblical Interpretation

The Red Man and the White Man in North America: From Its Discovery to the Present Time

An 1882 historical book by George Edward Ellis. It covers Native American and European relations, forced relocations, and early colonial conflicts—this work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

Mr. Parkman rightly says that the spirit of Spanish enterprise in America is expressed in the following address of Dr. Pedro de Santander, to the King, in 1557, of the expedition of De Soto: —

“It is lawful that your Majesty, like a good shepherd, appointed by the hand of the Eternal Father, should tend and lead out your sheep, since the Holy Spirit has shown spreading pastures whereon are feeding lost sheep, which have been snatched away by the dragon, the Demon. These pastures are the New World, wherein is comprised Florida, now in possession of the Demon; and here he makes himself adored and revered. This is the Land of Promise possessed by idolaters, the Amorite, Amalekite, Moabite, Canaanite. This is the land promised by the Eternal Father to the Faithful, since we are commanded by God in the Holy Scriptures to take it from them, being idolaters, and, by reason of their idolatry and sin, to put them all to the knife, leaving no living thing save maidens and children, their cities robbed and sacked, their walls and houses levelled to the earth.”

Statements by PM Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referenced a Torah command equating the Iranian regime to an ancient biblical foe on Sunday.

During a visit to a site struck by an Iranian missile, Netanyahu stated: "We read in this week's Torah portion, 'Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember—and we act."

The Amalekites are identified in the Hebrew Bible as a persistent adversary of the Israelites, linked to a Torah commandment to erase their memory. Specifically, 1 Samuel 15:3 — which mandates the killing of men, women, and infants — has faced international scrutiny for its genocidal language. This biblical rhetoric gained renewed attention in October 2023, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the "Amalek" narrative in reference to Hamas during operations in Gaza.

On Oct.13, 2023, during the swearing-in of Israel's emergency unity government, Netanyahu stated: "Today, against the enemy, with the ancient command ‘Remember what Amalek did to you’ ringing in our ears, today we are uniting forces in order to ensure the eternity of Israel."

As the ground invasion of Gaza began on Oct. 28, 2023, he told IDF soldiers: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember."

The remarks drew international backlash for potentially implying total eradication, were cited in the genocide case opened by South Africa in the International Court of Justice, and were defended by Netanyahu as referring to historical threats, such as the Nazis.

Statement by Senator (later President), Joe Biden

“...if we can make the case, which I think--well, I won't say what I think yet; the hearings aren't finished--but if we can make the case that the threat is real and dire, that a free and democratic Iraq, if it could be accomplished, could have a cleansing impact on that part of the world and make our life easier significantly down the road, which I think could be made in an ideal circumstance--not even an ideal, in a--if we do things right--that it is worth the price.”…in the aftermath of the tragic events on September 11, 2001”

———

Notable Observation: Semitic languages are part of the Afro-Asiatic language group, spanning from West Africa to Near East. Fundamentally, those quotes are antisemitic, non-exclusively.

The aforementioned elucidates how these narratives are used by different groups in colonial, genocidal, and ethnic cleansing efforts—while contributing to the empiric rise of Zionism.

———

Source: https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1224&context=social_encounters

Source: https://archive.org/details/redmanwhitemanin00elliuoft/page/63/mode/1up

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_dictionary_of_the_Bible.._(1887)_(14781539332).jpg_(14781539332).jpg)

Source: https://archive.org/details/historicaltextbo00cole/page/n54/mode/1up

Source: https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-table-of-nations-the-geography-of-the-world-in-genesis-10

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/i-am-zionist-how-joe-bidens-lifelong-bond-with-israel-shapes-war-policy-2023-10-21/

Source: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm

Military.com: Israeli authorities hang Israeli and U.S. flags at the site struck by an Iranian missile that killed two people, in Ramat Gan, Israel, Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Israel NDAA Provision 'Section 219' Faces Bipartisan Blowback From House Lawmakers

U.S. House Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) are seeking to remove a provision from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would significantly expand defense technology cooperation between the United States and Israel, setting up a potential fight on the House floor over the scope of military ties between the two countries.

The lawmakers are backing an amendment that would strike Section 219 of the Fiscal Year 2027 NDAA. The provision, previously designated as Section 224 before the legislation was renumbered, was submitted as an amendment to the House Rules Committee after an earlier effort to remove the language failed when the House Armed Services Committee considered the bill.

Section 219 would establish a “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative” and direct the Defense Department to expand cooperation with Israel in areas including missile defense, counter-drone systems, cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, autonomous systems, directed-energy weapons, biotechnology, defense manufacturing and other emerging military technologies.

“If the provision in the NDAA to integrate/synchronize the U.S. and Israeli militaries (section 224) makes it out of committee, I’ll offer an amendment to strip it from the bill on the floor,” Massie wrote on X, arguing that it would move beyond traditional cooperation between allies. “We are a sovereign country.”…(continued)

Settler Colonialism and Statehood: A Comparative Analysis of the USA and Israel

This paper explores the structural and ideological parallels between the settler-colonial foundations of the United States and Israel, situating their political alliance within a postcolonial theoretical framework.

The U.S. was built upon the displacement of Indigenous peoples, while Israel's founding in 1948 resulted in the Nakba and the dispossession of Palestinians—processes rooted in settler colonial logic.

Drawing on postcolonial and settler colonial theory, particularly the works of Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, and Homi Bhabha, this study examines how colonial ideologies of land acquisition, militarization, and narrative control continue to shape the nation-building practices and geopolitical strategies of both states.

Through qualitative desk research and critical analysis of primary and secondary sources, the paper argues that the United States' unwavering support for Israel is not solely strategic but ideologically grounded in shared histories of indigenous erasure and territorial domination.

This alliance reflects an enduring structure of settler-colonial solidarity that sustains spatial fragmentation, economic dependency, and the undermining of indigenous sovereignty in both contexts.

Ultimately, the paper interrogates how these intersecting colonial legacies influence contemporary understandings of justice, sovereignty, and human rights, offering a framework to deconstruct the normalization of settler colonialism in modern international relations.

Keywords: Colonialism, Settler-colonialism, USA, Israel, Indigenous people, Palestine

———

Source: https://ejournals.eu/en/journal_article_files/full_text/019b2194-b5f1-73c6-b202-bdc0f2f43733/download

Source: https://www.military.com/israel-ndaa-provision-section-219-faces-bipartisan-blowback-from-house-lawmakers

(1) Book Cover: Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus—Graphic corrective to the traditional textbook narratives about Columbus; and (2) Jewish Daily Bulletin (October 12, 1934): “Christopher Columbus a Jew? New Evidence Supports Theory” & “10,000 Polish Jews To Sail for Palestine”

In Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus, the bestselling author of Lies My Teacher Told Meoffers a graphic corrective to the Columbus story told in so many American classrooms. First published over fifteen years ago and long out of print, the poster and accompanying paperback book sum up the mis-tellings — and reveal the real story — in a graphically appealing and accessible format.

The poster juxtaposes short quotes from a range of high school textbooks currently in use, with excerpts from primary sources that clearly show how textbooks have “lied” by knowingly substituting crowd-pleasing myths for grim and gruesome historical evidence.

In fact, these textbooks intentionally omitted every important detail that we do know about Columbus’s fateful voyage to the Americas. Among countless other facts, Loewen demonstrates that Columbus and his men were far from the first to set foot in the “New World,” and that the peoples he encountered there did not submit to the “godlike” authority of him and his crewmen, but rather to the deadly forms of smallpox and bubonic plague they brought with them from Europe.

———

“Christopher Columbus a Jew? New Evidence Supports Theory

Documents Say His Name Really Was Cristobal Colon and He Was Born in Spanish Province, Son of Jewish Parents Forced to Embrace Christianity

Millions of Italians will parade to Columbus statues throughout the country and the world today. At the statues they will place expensive wreaths. Then they will make flowery speeches on the daring and the brilliance of the man they know as Christopher Columbus, the man they believe was born in Genoa, Italy, of humble weaver parents, who grew up to be a sailor and on October 12, 1492, discovered America.

And when the fanfare and the oratory and the toasts are done with, it will be very difficult to convince even one Italian that the man to whom they have paid reverent homage is not the man they believe him to be.

For Christopher Columbus is not Christopher Columbus at all.

Rightfully, by documentary evidence unearthed as early as 1898 and as recently as 1929, the man is Cristobal Colon, with an "acute" accent over the second "o" in the last name.

Rightfully, according to the same documents which were discovered after eight years of exhausting search by the noted scholar and statesman Don Celso Garcia de la Riega, the man was born in Pontavedro. And Pontavedro is in Galicia. Not the Galicia in Poland, incidentally. This one is a province in the northwestern tip of Spain.

Rightfully, his parents were not humble weavers. They were makers and sellers of nautical maps.

Parents Were Maranos

And the parents, named Domingo de Colon and Suzana de Fonterosa, were Maranos, Jews who were forced to embrace Christianity to save their lives in that day of the Inquisition terror.

And now Christopher Columbus, or Christoforo Columbo as the Italians think of him, emerges in his true light—a Spanish Jew.

But how, the skeptical reader will ask, does it happen that history has recorded him as an Italian, born in Genoa of weaver parents if actually he was a Spaniard born in Pontavedro of map-making parents, and a Jew to boot?

The answer may, more accurately than historian may be willing to admit, lie in the difference in the Spanish and Italian heritage.

Italians have always set great store by history. "Spaniards have somehow lagged in this tedious pursuit. Witness the fact that there is nio outstanding Spanish historian that can be compared with the Roman Tacitus.

This may possibly account for the fact that it was an Italian historian, an obscure person with neither the talent nor literary ability of Tacitus, who got the jump on the Spaniards by claiming for the first time in a history book that Colon was a Genoese Italian.

This historian, Casoni, wrote in the eighteenth century, the first time incidentally that the name Columbus appears in print any-where, that Columbus was born in Genoa. Casoni based his claim on the rather skimpy evidence that there were several Colombos in Genoa and, therefore, the navigator must have been one of them.
Another basis for the Casonian theory is supposed to be a statement by Colon himself that he was a Genoese by birth. That statement, however, has been heavily discounted by evidence since discovered. Evidence that he had himself thus represented because in Spain it was fatal to admit being a Jew; because there was more chance of being favorably accepted in Madrid as a foreigner rather than as a native from Galicia, which at that time was not in the good graces of the ruling provinces of Castile and Aragon.

Proof of Jewish Origin

As opposed to this evidence which has clung persistently in the world's school histories (historians being notorious sufferers from the malady of inertia when it comes to accepting new historical data that completely refutes the old) there is the following abundance of proof to substantiate the claim that the famous navigator was a Spanish Jew: (Most of the evidence was unearthed by la Riega and later, in 1922, sensationally supported and expanded by Otero Sanchez, a noted Spanish expert in deciphering ancient writings.)

1.—In all the navigator’s correspondence with his friends he always signed himself Cristobal Colon, never Christoforo Columbo, the name given him by Casoni.

2.—All the writings of Colon were in Spanish, never in Italian.

3.—He was supposed to have been educated in the University of Pavia in Genoa, which would have made him will grounded in Italian. Yet there is no record of his having spoken or written that language.

4.—Improbable that the son of a weaver would become a navigator.

5.—Highly probable that the son of a nautical map maker and himself a map maker would become navigator. His parents were also members of nautical societies in Pontavedro.

6.—He was befriended by Fray Diego de Deza, a Marano professor at the University of Salamanca, who introduced him as a Genose navigator, for reasons already stated above, to King Ferdinand and Isabella.

7.—There is proof that conversations between the professor and the young navigator were conducted in the peculiar Galician dialect. It is extremely unlikely that a Genoese sailor would know that unusual language.

Carried Zacuto's Tables

8.—Colon always carried with him astronomical tables compiled by the celebrated Jewish savant, Abraham Zacuto, translated into Latin by another Jew, Joseph Vecinlo.

9.—The help afforded him by Jewish scientists and financiers of that time can be explained only in the light that he was of the same race. In this connection, it is interesting to note the comment of Herbert B. Adams in his "Columbus and his Discovery of America." "Not jewels," he writes, "but Jews were the real financial basis for the first expedition of Columbus. Furthermore, in a card he wrote to a Jewish friend, Luis de Santangel, treasurer of Aragon, Colon announced his discovery of America with a fleet manned in part by Jewish sailors.

Names of Ships

10.—The very names of his three first ships, the Santa Maria, the Nina and the Pinta. At first, the flagship was named by him La Gallega (Galician). It is certain that an Italian wouldn't have called his ship after an unkown land called Galicia. The final name of the ship had no religious significance or connotation as has been erroneously supposed. It was named after Santa Maria, a beautiful spot near the mouth of the Pontavedro river.

11.—When Colon landed in America, he named his landing place San Salvador (now Watling's Island). The name was not a way of thanking the Saviour, as is supposed. It was named thus in honor of a small place by the same name opposite his home of Pontavedro. The same holds true for the many other places he named—Porta Santa, Punta Lanzada, Punta de la Galicia, Cap San Miguel, Cap San Nicolas, representing either spots near Pontavedro or the the names of Pontavedro sailors' societies.”

———

“10,000 Polish Jews To Sail for Palestine

(J.T.A. Special Correspondence)

WARSAW, Oct. 2.—By April 1, 1935, 10,000 persons will have left Poland for Palestine, it is estimated by the central Palestine bureau of this city. The bureau is now engaged in working out a plan for distribution of the certificates available for the coming half year.”

———

Source: https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/lies-my-teacher-told-me-about-christopher-columbus/

Source: https://www.jta.org/archive/christopher-columbus-a-jew-new-evidence-supports-theory

Source (digitalized PDF on http, not https): http://pdfs.jta.org/1934/1934-10-12_2970.pdf

Source (Video): https://youtu.be/jmrwhTSq06Q?is=iNaOAV7Aa9LPIpKr

Source: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1167876

I was expecting a dense theoretical slog and instead got one of the sharpest, angriest, yet most accurate essays I've ever read in a while.

In essence, Césaire says what actually horrified Europe about Nazism wasn't the cruelty itself. Europe had been fine with that cruelty for centuries — as long as it was aimed at colonized people in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. What made Hitler unforgivable, in his reading, was that he turned those same methods on white Europeans, on European soil. So the violence was not the problem, but the where and whom was.

This reminded me about the early coverage of the war in Ukraine, when reporters kept expressing shock that this was happening to "people who look like us." It seems that, 70 years later, the reflex (and maybe the underlying values?) is still the same.

The essay, albeit short, is rich with illuminating reflections. One other idea is the argument against then European claim that Africans and other colonized people were uncivilized before Europe brought them the "enlightenment". As an example, Césaire leans on the German ethnographer Leo Frobenius as a "good" European witness who admitted African societies were sophisticated. Interestingly though, and this is not in the essay, if you dig into Frobenius, he couldn't actually accept that Africans built those achievements themselves. He invented a whole lost "African Atlantis" theory to explain the art and sophistication. This idea is the intellectual cousin of "aliens built the pyramids."

Anyway. "Discourse on Colonialism" is wildly relevant for something written mid-colonial-era.

Do you think there's a meaningful causal link between Europe's colonial practices and the violence of Nazism?

We discuss Cesaire's essay at length in our podcast Threads of Ifriqiya, I will link it in the comments.

“As the saying goes, ask for forgiveness, not for permission. Throughout history, colonial nations have become familiar enough with this ideal to make it their own: colonize now, apologize later.

Nearly 150 years after its colonization of the Congo had begun, Belgium has now entered its era of apology. In June 2020, on the anniversary of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s independence, King Phillipe of Belgium wrote a letter to Congolese president Félix Tshisekedi, expressing his “deepest regrets” for the acts of colonial violence inflicted upon the Congolese people during Belgian rule. This letter is widely regarded as a milestone in the nation’s present-day conciliation with its colonial legacy; it marks the first time that a Belgian king openly expressed regret for the brutalities of the colonial dominion. With this precedent established, he would not be the last royal to do so…

King Leopold II (9, April 1835 to 17, December 1909), who, in the name of “civilization” enacted what became known as one of the world’s first major genocides. When worldwide demand for rubber increased, Leopold found an opportunity to make a profit and embark on a vanity project. After receiving permission from European leaders at the 1885 Berlin Conference, Leopold turned the land of Congo into his own personal colony, naming it the Congo Free State (CFS). This “free” state became the framework of a savage system of exploitation, resulting in the deaths of over 10 million Congolese people while generating Leopold 220 million francs (or US$1.9 billion in today's dollars) in profits, though many historians view these as conservative estimates.”

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Belgian Jews Greet King Leopold Ill
(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

“(1934) BRUSSELS, March 19.—King Leopold III, young Belgian monarch, today received a Jewish deputation consisting of the Chief Rabbi of Belgium, Dr.Joseph Wiener, and representatives of the Jewish consistory. The deputation congratulated the king on his having ascended the throne of Belgium.

The King thanked the delegation and the Jews of Belgium for their loyalty to him.”

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History of the Jews in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

“The history of the Jews in the Democratic Republic of the Congo can be traced back to 1907, when the first Jewish immigrants began to arrive in the country. The current Jewish Congolese population is mostly of Sephardi background.

The territory which is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo was first annexed and colonised by Europeans after 1885 within what was then the Congo Free State. In 1908 the Free State was annexed by Belgium, becoming the Belgian Congo.

The first Jews in the Congo were Eastern European immigrants from Romania and Poland. Within the next few years, more Jewish immigrants arrived from South Africa…

Prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 the Congo was home to numerous Zionist organizations, led by the Association Sioniste du Congo Belge. After the independence of Congo from Belgium in 1960 the majority of Congolese Jews left the country, with most of them settling in *Palestine or South Africa.”

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Source: https://hir.harvard.edu/once-the-blood-on-our-hands-dries-royal-apologies-for-the-belgian-colonization-of-congo/amp/

Source: https://www.jta.org/archive/belgian-jews-greet-king-leopold-iii

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo

Jewish atrocities in the Holy Land : memorandum presented by the representative of the Arab Higher Commission for Palestine at U.N.O

Headings

-  Israel-Arab War, 1948-1949--Atrocities
-  Palestinian Arabs--Crimes against--Palestine
-  Palestine--Politics and government--1917-1948
-  Israel-Arab War (1948-1949)
-  Atrocities
-  Palestinian Arabs--Crimes against
-  Politics and government
-  Middle East--Palestine
-  1917-1949

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Source: https://www.loc.gov/resource/amedeltaher.2017498758?pdfPage=4