British Rule in Palestine

The decision of the Ottoman Empire to get involved in World War I as a Central power changed European point of view about many issues in the Middle East. The British mandate for Palestine, also known as the Palestine mandate, was over a small piece of southern Syria

Since the Roman conquest of the first century, Jewish communities were scattered throughout western and eastern Europe, Russia, and the United States.

Since their dissemination around Europe and America, the Jewish communities cherished the hope to return to the Holy land.

Millions of Jews lived in East Europe and many started immigrating to the United States. The Jews in Europe had suffered discrimination and prejudice so they always hoped that a new nation would gather them together.

Consequently, political Zionist movement started in Europe and Palestine. In the 1880s, a Jewish group assisted Jewish communities to settle in Palestine and in 1884 the Lovers of Zion cautioned agricultural settlements in Palestine. Leo Pinsker, in 1882, wrote a treatise about the bad treatment that Jews were receiving in Europe and he said that they will never be treated as equals (Cleveland, 2009). Therefore, Pinsker declared that Jews needed an independent Jewish state where they would be respected and they would be able to develop a national identity. In addition, Theodor Herzl, in 1897, declared at the Zionist Congress in Basel that Zionism’s goal was to create a legally recognized nation in Palestine for the Jewish people. Therefore, the world had witnessed the creation of a World Zionist Organization.

The Ottoman Empire decided to help Germany during the World War I so Britain, France, and Russia decided to divide the Ottoman territories. During the war, the British made many promises to different people. First, they promised Sharif Husayn of Mecca that he would have the land of Palestine. Second, through the Sykes-Picot Agreement, French had a claim on Palestine. Then, from the Jewish point of view, the British promised Palestine to them (fpri.org). The international Zionist community had helped the British during the war.

In addition, the Jewish groups started to have a big influence in the United States and Russia. A Zionist spokesman named Weizmann emerged in London and he decided to push all the political doors at the British cabinet in order to create a Jewish nation. Therefore, the British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour sent a letter to Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, saying that the British government would help the Jewish people in Palestine to get their “National Home.”

Consequently, on November 2, 1917, the Balfour Declaration stated that “his Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” (avalon.law.yale.edu).

The Ottoman Empire decided to help Germany during the World War I so Britain, France, and Russia decided to divide the Ottoman territories. During the war, the British made many promises to different people. First, they promised Sharif Husayn of Mecca that he would have the land of Palestine. Second, through the Sykes-Picot Agreement, French had a claim on Palestine. Then, from the Jewish point of view, the British promised Palestine to them (fpri.org). The international Zionist community had helped the British during the war. In addition, the Jewish groups started to have a big influence in the United States and Russia. A Zionist spokesman named Weizmann emerged in London and he decided to push all the political doors at the British cabinet in order to create a Jewish nation. Therefore, the British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour sent a letter to Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, saying that the British government would help the Jewish people in Palestine to get their “National Home” (Module 5). Consequently, on November 2, 1917, the Balfour Declaration stated that “his Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” (avalon.law.yale.edu).

The British governing of the Palestinian Mandate from the end of World War I to the creation of the state of Israel had been through many negotiations and both formal and informal talks. In 1917, British troops captured Jerusalem and the San Remo Conference granted Britain the mandate for Palestine.

From 1917 to 1920, British officials had helped Weizmann and Faysal of Syria to find a way to solve the Jewish problem. In 1919, Weizmann promised Faysal of Syria that the Jewish communities would work with the Arabs and they will develop Palestine’s economy. In return, Faysal of Syria recognized the Balfour Declaration.

However, when the French occupied Syria, the agreement between Faysal of Syria and Weizmann could not be realized. Meanwhile, the League Nations gave a lot of hope to the Zionist movement but they raised many worries within the Arab groups. According to Cleveland (2009), “the terms of the League mandate incorporated the Balfour Declaration and recognized Hebrew as an official language in Palestine.”

The Zionist movement was also helped by Sir Herbert Samuel who was a British civilian and a high commissioner. Then, at the Paris Peace Conference, Weizmann declared that a Jewish state will see the day in Palestine.

Consequently, in 1922, the White Paper confirmed the right to Jewish people to immigrate to Palestine. Samuel, the High commissioner, created an advisory council with ten Arabs and two Jewish representatives designated by the High commissioner. But the Arab nominees could not attend the advisory council because they were bullied into refusing to serve. Consequently, Palestine was ruled only by the High commissioner and British officials alone. Hostility grew in Palestine between the Arabs community and the Jewish community and each community started developing its own political system and its own economic activity.

While the Zionist movement was well organized in Europe, in America, and in Palestine, the Arabs were having difficulties in organizing themselves into a cohesive political organization. According to Cleveland (2009) destructive factionalism and British policy of “divide in order to rule” did not help the Arabs to organize their members into a strong movement. In addition, there was a strong rivalry between the two Muslim notable families of Jerusalem called the Nashashibis and the al-Husaynis. There was a strong struggle for power and the British made sure to keep the divisions between these two powerful local elites. Hajj Amin al-Husayni became the Mufti of Jerusalem and the chief of the Supreme Muslim Council in 1922. He was an active anti-Zionist but he was a pragmatic politician who was ready to negotiate and to find a solution to the question of Jewish immigration into Palestine.

But as we have mentioned above, the Jewish community had strong leaders and very well organized institutions in Britain and the United Sates. Hence, the Jewish community had both human and fiscal means to help Jewish around the world to settle in Palestine. In 1921, The Palestine Zionist Executive had created recognized Jewish agencies, banking systems, and immigrant settlement. The Yishuv, the Jewsih community in Palestine, created a Federation of Jewish Labor called Histadrut. This federation promoted trade unionism and the enterprises hired only Jewish workers. They created Kibbutz, farming properties belonging to the community and workers worked and shared responsibility. The Histadrut and Kibbutz have developed a socialist economic way of working. The Histadrut was also bringing Jewish people from the ghettos of Europe and turning them into soldiers. In 1920, the Haganah had been created in response to Arab riots. They were trained soldiers organized into a centralized army. In 1930, two labor groups had merged into a party called the Mapai Party. Ben-Gurion, who was already the executive secretary of the Histadrut, became responsible of the Mapai Party. Jewish immigration grew haphazardly in the Palestinian Mandate and the immigrants were acquiring more lands. Therefore, tensions between Arabs and Jews grew in Palestine.

In 1948, Ben-Gurion proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel which was automatically recognized by the United States and Soviet Union. Consequently, in May of 1948, the Arab-Israeli war started. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Iraq sent army troops to invade Israel. Six months later, Israel defeated the Arabs and they extended their territories. Palestine, according to Cleveland (2009), had been shared between Israel, Egypt, and Transjordan. Therefore, the Palestinians did not see the creation of a Palestinian state and 700, 000 Palestinian became refugees. In 1948, a Palestinian mass exodus took place. In 1949, only 160, 000 remained within the borders of Israel.

In conclusion, the movement to create a Jewish state started in Europe in the 19^thcentury and finally was realized in 1948. Ben-Gurion declared the state of Israel in May 1948 and he served as a prime minister from that point until 1953. The Arabs, who were not united and who were into many political rivalries, had failed to find the right unity in order to negotiate properly with the British and the United Nations.

Carpe Diem

Carpe diem, Latin for "seize the day," is a fundamentally proactive philosophy.

It's not enough to sit back and daydream about all the pleasures the world has to offer or even to appreciate all the wonderful things in life.


Rather, this approach challenges the reader to pursue desires with passion and urgency. A common theme involves the fleeting nature of time.

Youth is over before you know it, and death is right around the corner. Therefore, the challenge, according to these speakers, is to fill every moment and make it count.

How many times have you put something off, because you could always take care of it tomorrow? What would happen, though, if you died today? It's not a pleasant thought, but it is an important one, particularly to the application of a "seize the day" philosophy.

The message here is that the very concept of tomorrow is an unfounded assumption. There are no guarantees that it will come at all.

The mindset is that we must make the most of today, because it is all we really have.

Shi' and Sunnis: What is the difference, Mum?

What is the difference between Shi' and Sunnis? My children, my middle school students, and high school students had asked me this question many times.

Islam today consists of two major branches: The Shi' (or Shiites) and the Sunnis who were initially divided by their feelings regarding who should hold temporal power in the Islamic community and the degree to which the person holding temporal power should also hold religious authority.

The vast majority of the world's Muslims are the Sunni, who believe that the four original caliphs and their eventual successors were rightful leaders of Islam.

The Shi' believe that only the fourth of the caliphs was a rightful successor to Muhammad, and that this successor, or Imam, inherited the Prophet Muhammad's divine inspiration. They believe that the Prophet Muhammad explicitly designated his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, as his successor caliph.

The Shi' also believe that, while the prophethood ended with the Prophet Muhammad, this divine inspiration was then passed down to Ali's direct descendents, the next Imam being designated by the first, and so on until the twelfth Imam disappeared in 874 A.D. The Shi' believe an Imam has direct contact with God, and can infallibly sanction new laws and interpret the Qur'an in order to reveal is esoteric meaning.

Sunnis reject this doctrine of infallibility.

Shi' believe that these Imams are the only ones with the right to be caliphs, meaning that all other caliphs are usurpers of the caliphate. According to Shi' theology, Muhammad el Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam, did not die, but went into hiding in caves. He will supernaturally return just before the Day of Judgement to usher in a new golden age of Islam.

Pre-Raphaelite Women

My Dream

by Christina Rossetti

Hear now a curious dream I dreamed last night,

Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.

I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled

Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:

It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight,

Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled

Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,

Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew.

The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend,

My closest friend would deem the facts untrue;

And therefore it were wisely left untold.

Yet if you will, why, hear it to the end.

Each crocodile was girt with massive gold

And polished stones that with their wearers grew:

But one there was who waxed beyond the rest,

Wore kinglier girdle and a kingly crown,

Whilst crowns and orbs and sceptres starred his breast.

All gleamed compact and green with scale on scale,

But special burnishment adorned his mail

And special terror weighed upon his frown;

His punier brethren quaked before his tail,

Broad as a rafter, potent as a flail.

So he grew lord and master of his kin:

But who shall tell the tale of all their woes?

An execrable appetite arose,

He battened on them, crunched, and sucked them in.

He knew no law, he feared no binding law,

But ground them with inexorable jaw:

The luscious fat distilled upon his chin,

Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes,

While still like a hungry death he fed his maw;

Till every minor crocodile being dead

And buried too, himself gorged to the full,

He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw.

Oh marvel passing strange which next I saw:

In sleep he dwindled to the common size,

And all the empire faded from his coat.

Then from far off a winged vessel came,

Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame:

I know not what it bore of freight or host,

But white it was as an avenging ghost.

It levelled strong Euphrates in its course;

Supreme yet weightless as an idle mote

It seemed to tame the waters without force

Till not a murmur swelled or billow beat:

Lo, as the purple shadow swept the sands,

The prudent crocodile rose on his feet

And shed appropriate tears and wrung his hands.

What can it mean? you ask. I answer not

For meaning, but myself must echo, What?

And tell it as I saw it on the spot.

Thoughts about Truth...

Reynard Alleyne Nicholson, the eminent authority on Islamic mysticism, was a very shy and retiring man, who achieved a deeper penetration of the mind and spirit of Islam than any other man (written by Arthur John Arberry).

Reynard Nicholson composed this poem in which he revealed his inner thoughts. These thoughts had obviously been profoundly influenced by his long studies of Rumi.



Deep in our hearts the Light of Heaven is shining
Upon a soundless Sea without a shore.
Oh, happy they who found it in resigning
The images of all that men adore.

Blind eyes, to dote on shadows of things fair
Only at last to curse their fatal lure,
Like Harut and Marut, that Angel-pair
Who deemed themselves the purest of the pure.

Our ignorance and self-will and vicious pride
Destroy the harmony of part and whole.
In vain we seek with lusts unmortified
A vision of the One Eternal Soul.

Love, Love alone can kill what seemed so dead,
The frozen snake of passion. Love alone,
By tearful prayer and fiery longing fed,
Reveals a knowledge schools have never known.

God's lovers learn from Him the secret ways
Of Providence, the universal plan.
Living in Him, they ever sing His praise
Who make the myriad worlds of Time for Man.

Evil they knew not, for in Him there's none;
Yet without evil how should good be seen?
Love answers: "Feel with me, with me be one;
Where I am nought stands up to come between."

There are degrees of heavenly light in souls;
Prophets and Saints have shown the path they trod,
Its starting points and stages, halts and goals,
All leading to the single end in God.

Love will not let his faithful servants tire,
Immortal Beauty draws them on and on
From glory unto glory drawing nigher
At each remove and loving to be drawn.
When Truth shines out words fail and nothing tell;
Now hear the Voice within your hearts. Farewell.
(By Reynard Alleyne Nicholson)

It was of that serene vision of Truth that al-Hallaj, the great Muslim mystic, spoke shortly before his crucifixion in 922:

Now stands no more between the Truth and me
Or reasoned demonstration,
Or proof or revelation;
Now, brightly blazing full, Truth's luminary,
That drives out of sight
Each flickering, lesser light.

What is truth? I think ...Truth, then is Light, a light that shines into the Heart

God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth;
the likeness of His Light is as a niche
wherein is a lamp
the lamp in a glass
the glass as it were a glittering star
kindly by a Blessed Tree,
an olive that is neither of the East not the West
Whose oil well-nigh would shine, even if no fire touched it.
Light upon Light

I think that once this light has shone into the heart, no darkness can evercome it.

The "Sandwich Generation"

The "sandwich generation" refers to people who find themselves sandwiched between and responsible for two other generations, their children and their own aging parents.

Typically between the ages of 40 and 55, these people find themselves pulled in two compelling directions.

Many feel overwhelmed as these competing responsibilities collide. Some are plagued with guilt and anger because they can be in only one place at a time.

Henslin (2009)

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION & HAPPINESS

While the research shows that religious people can have both physical and psychological problems, most studies show that one's faith clearly is associated with more benefits than detriments.

The future of psychology of religion, as well as its parent discipline, social psychology, looks promising.

Life satisfaction or happiness is only minimally affected by external circumstances, such as money (e.g., a person simply cannot buy happiness).

More importantly, what affects happiness is what a person thinks, does, and the individual's relationships with God and humankind.

Seligman (2002) found that people are happier if they are satisfied with their past, have hope for their future, and optimism in the present.

Those who have close relationships, gratitude and forgiveness in their heart, optimism in their thoughts, positive personality traits, a sense of humor, and emotional flow (engagement) in work and leisure activity contribute to human happiness.

The Psychology of Religion and Happiness. The former is a social institution, the latter is largely thought of as a socio-psychological phenomenon. These characteristics of people and culture are important elements in the social psychology.

For, measurements of both religiosity and happiness provide insight into cultural attributes that reinforce, reproduce and reconstruct the social fabric of a culture.

Altruism or Egoism: The Great Debate

John Donne wrote almost 400 years ago:

"No Man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."

Helping others in distress is not only social behavior, but ethical behavior as well.

Free the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo

Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate for year 2010, was sentenced to 11 years of prison on December 25th 2009 under the name of 'inciting subversion' because of his initiation of 'Charter 08' which calls for democracy and protection of human rights in China.

The sentence is unacceptable and illegitimate, as it's completely against fundamental human rights and China's constitution.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 states that:"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

According to Chinese Constitution Article 35, the freedoms of expression and publishing are protected as well:"The citizens of China enjoy freedom of expression, publishing, assembly, association, manifestation and demonstration."

A Chinese citizen from Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, has started a petition asking Chinese authories to free Liu Xiaobo.

Can you imagine a man being sentenced to 11 years of prison just because he wrote an article calling for the protection of human rights and democracy?

That man is Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for 2010. He has been fighting for a more open, free and democratic China for more 20 years, but now he is imprisoned illegally and illegitimately.

Of Our Spiritual Strivings

"Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here at the dawning of the Twentieth Century. This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line."

W.E.B Du B.
ATLANTA, GA., FEB. 1, 1903.


"After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity."

W.E.B du Bois

O water, voice of my heart, crying in the sand,
All night long crying with a mournful cry,
As I lie and listen, and cannot understand
The voice of my heart in my side or the voice of the sea,
O water, crying for rest, is it I, is it I?
All night long the water is crying to me.

Unresting water, there shall never be rest
Till the last moon droop and the last tide fail,
And the fire of the end begin to burn in the west;
And the heart shall be weary and wonder and cry like the sea,
All life long crying without avail,
As the water all night long is crying to me.

ARTHUR SYMONS.

'groupthink'

Walter Humes, a research professor in education at Paisley University, wrote

"One advantage of the summer holidays is that they give teachers and pupils a chance to escape from the herd mentality that afflicts much of education. Sociologists call this tendency "groupthink", a mediocre consensus of views designed to silence dissent and promote conformity."




Holidays allow us to step back from the assumptions of our daily routine. I think it would be healthy if teachers returned from their break more willing to challenge groupthink.

Groupthink refers to an excessive tendency to seek concurrence among group members. The symptoms of groupthink produce decision making which can lead to a bad decision.

A groupthink is a group decision making style characterized by an excessive tendency among group members to seek concurrence (Kassin, 2011, p. 315). According to Kassin (2011), “some scholars have proposed that the group dynamics behind the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 reflected groupthink.”

According to sociologist Irving Janis (1972, 1982), groupthink refers to the “collective tunnel vision that group members sometimes develop. As they begin to think alike, they become convinced that there is only one “right” viewpoint and a single course of action to follow.” The group starts making faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment.”

For example, when top leaders were trying to provide justifications for starting the Iraq War, they announced that Iraq was negotiating with an African country to buy uranium. Six month later, the public learned that this claim was based on clearly falsified documents from Niger, a country in west-central Africa. Furthermore, the president maintained that his State of the Union address had been cleared by the CIA (Isikoff & Lipper, 2003, as cited in Matlin, 2009). Top leaders were convinced that they made the right decisions to go to war according to this error of the “uranium question.”

According to Irving (1982), the top leaders’ administration had incomplete survey, poor information research, selective bias in processing information at hand, and errors in source monitoring.

The top leaders had the characteristics which contribute to the development of groupthink: (1) a highly cohesive group; (2) group structure that is composed of people from similar background directed by a strong leader; (3) a stressful situation which provoke groupthink; (4) illusions of invulnerability where the group think it is invincible and can do no wrong; (5) collective efforts to rationalize or discounts warnings; (6) stereotyped views of the out-group; and (7) a shared illusion of unanimity.

According to Marcia Johnson (2002), the government agencies need to be careful about checking the accuracy of their information. This will help many countries not to fall into expensive, destructive wars.

What Attracts us to Others or, just as important What Attracts Others, to us?

Have you ever “looked in the mirror” and told yourself – “Wohoo – I am Good Looking”?

As Social Psychologists an additional question you may have asked during this “mirror session” is “How do others view my attractiveness”?

Clearly, the most important question a student can ask is "How powerful is the influence others have on us?"

Group influence and conformity are both concerned with how outside agents influence behavior.

We will be forced to put our "biases" (*as best we can - since we have already learned that we, as humans are couched in bias!) on alert and open our minds to social theory, if we are to understand the social psychology of interpersonal relationships.

A suivre...

Social Class and Stratification

Henslin defines social stratification as "a system in which groups of people are divided into layers according to their relative power, property, and prestige" (2009, p. 172).

The whole notion of stratification is borrowed from geology where layers of sediment, organic matter or stone, called strata, are evident when one digs down into the ground from the surface.

Sociology borrowed that term and made the analogy that in a given society, some people (the poorest or least powerful) are at the bottom of the pile. Others with more wealth or power are over them, still others who have even more wealth or power are on top of them, until the wealthiest or most powerful are at the top of the heap.

No known society is or has been unstratified! Someone always has more money, goods, power, than someone else!

Approach to Memory Improvement

There is no single solution to help students or adults with their memory problems. Psychologists propose that we need a more comprehensive approach to solving memory problems.

For example, Douglas Herrmann's multimodal approach emphasizes that people who seriously want to enhance their memory must adopt a comprehensive approach to memory improvement; this approach focuses on many different modes or factors (Herrmann, 1991; Herrmann et al., 2002).

A comprehensive approach requires us to pay attention to our physical condition by getting sufficient sleep and attending to health problem.

Also, students who have a strong motivation to achieve success are also likely to have high grade-point average (Robbins et al., 2004).

People who want to improve their memories should develop a repertoire of several-improvement techniques:

1. Do not divide your attention between several simultaneous tasks.
2. Process information in terms of its meaning, by emphasizing elaborative encodings, distinctiveness, and self-reference.
3. Try to learn material in the same context as the one in which you will be tested.
4. The amount you learn depends on the total time you spend practicing.
5. You will learn more if you spread your learning trials over time
6. You will enhance your memory just by taking tests on the material.
7. Use imagery (mnemonics) that shows an interaction between the items that need to be recalled.
8. Use chunking by combining isolated items into meaningful units.
9. Construct a hierarchy by arranginf items in a series of classes.
   
10. Create a narrative, or a story that links a series of words together.
    
11. Create a vivid, interactive mental image to prompt future recall.
12. Create a specific reminder or an external memory aid.