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9 Types of People You Need in Your Life

2014-04-13T07:24:00.003+08:00

The truth of life is that in most cases there are the people around us that make us inexpressibly happy. Sure, it’s our family and those people who understand and accept us no matter what. They all are close to and very dear to our heart so spending time with them always makes us extremely happy. But apart from that any person that you happen to meet on your way makes their own contribution to your happiness without even knowing that. So in order to enjoy all the colors of your happiness you need to have various types of people in your life. I have identified 9, here they are.

1. Role model

It is great to have a person in your life who would be a role model for you so that you keep improving yourself. I’m not saying about jealousy, by no means. You just know a person who is, to your mind, really awesome and you want to have some features of character or some life principles you would also like to have. This is a good motive to be more professional at what you do, look after yourself better, start taking dancing classes or whatever.

2. The one to encourage

There are such special people that inspire and encourage us to live our lives to the fullest. If you are lucky to have your encourager than you will always know how special, strong, beautiful and just amazing you are. Such people make us move forward, reach goals and fight for our dreams.

3. Your any time rescue

It is the most precious feeling when you know that there is a person (or few) who will come to help no matter what. The situation may be of any type but the point is that you don’t feel awkward calling them and asking to give you a ride because your car went broken. Most probably you will be lectured on how great it is to have you as a friend (jokingly, of course) but you will be safely brought home. And next time when something goes wrong you won’t get a refuse either. And I’m sure you will be ready to act the same in return.

4. Good listener

As a flood of problems and worries catches you up, sometimes it is the best remedy to talk to someone who would hear you out. You don’t need any advice or help, just to talk to that person and not to see judgment in their eyes. If you have such a person, you have to value them.

5. A soul mate

My experience and observations show that as a rule each person has only one soul mate, though having numerous friends apart from them. A soul mate is more than just a friend, this person understands all your feelings and thoughts no matter how confusing they may sound to others. Actually, you would voice them only to your soul mate, wouldn’t you? You may relax and be yourself in their presence, silence is never a burden when you are together and this is just fantastic.

6. The big brother/big sister

Every woman is to have a man friend in her life which would mean friendship only without romantic feelings from each side. The stereotype persuades us that friendship between a man and woman doesn’t exist so you may try to prove it wrong. It is a very nice feeling to know that he will protect you as if your elder brother and you can always have a sincere conversation together finding out more about male and female nature.

7. A man of wisdom/A woman of wisdom

You have many really smart people around you but it is not an easy task to find a wise person. This is not about age, position or amount of misfortunes gone through, this is an ability to give a good advice which you would really take into consideration or follow. If you find such a person this means that your vision of life and life principles coincide and you will surely go through any challenge that stands in your way together.

8. Who keeps you accountable

Don’t confuse it with the person who usually encourages you. You share your goals and dreams with each other, build plans and discuss the possibilities. Once in a while you meet or have a phone conversation inquiring about the progress. This is also a kind of motivation for you to go on and make progress.

9. Having common career

The sphere of professional realization is very important in life of every person and it usually takes most of our time. It requires much of attention, pains and simply time. It is hard not to talk about it so when your family doesn’t have a clue of what you do at work, they won’t understand you. That’s why there should be a person you can freely talk about your job with and this may be your friend busy in the same sphere or a co-worker. Anyway, such people can support you when you are going through a tough period in your career or share your joy of success.
You can never predict what people will be in your life, they will come in and leave, changing you and bringing you happiness. The most important thing is that they must be there for you when you need them the most. Have you already found your special friends? What’s type of people make you happy?

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2014-04-03T00:04:00.000+08:00

BOYCOTT ISRAELI PRODUCTS

2014-02-12T08:54:00.002+08:00

1. Europeans have supported Israel since its formation 60 years ago. After all Israel was created by the Europeans. As a result they close their eyes to all the undemocratic and inhuman deeds of the Israelis.

2. Now a group of Europeans have formed a Non-Government Organisation to fight injustice. And they consider the Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land as against international law.

3. Al Jazeera in its Inside Story series hosted a debate between two Jews and one Palestinian. But one of the Jews, a former head of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, was not blindly supportive of Israeli settlements.

4. The pro-Israeli Jew came up with some idiotic arguments against the boycott of Israeli products made on the settlements. He insisted that it was wrong if it was meant to force Israelis to abandon the settlements, as the objective is political i.e. to force Israel to give up the settlement and to have peace with the Palestinians.

5. He described the Palestinian prisoners who were released recently as murderers. I don’t remember trials in Israeli courts for the 10,000 Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli jails at any one time for years and years.

6. I suppose the murder charges were based on rocket and bomb attacks said to be launched by the Palestinians. But what about Israeli attacks against Palestinian towns and villages, killing thousands and razing to the ground whole villages. What about the bulldozers which reduced houses to rubble often while their occupants were still inside?
7. The Israelis built roads through Palestinian land but do not allow the Palestinians to use them.

8. Israelis build high walls through Palestinian land and villages, separating Palestinian families from each other

9. The Palestinians have no rights in their own land. They cannot even call their country “Palestine”. They can only refer to themselves as the “Palestinian Authority”. Those who live in Israel proper have no rights yet Israel claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East.

10. As to Israeli claim that the boycott of Israeli goods is wrong, what about Israeli blockade of Gaza which resulted in the Israeli navy stopping relief vessels in international waters and killing 9 Turkish humanitarian workers? This is blatantly against international law.

11. If Israelis can do that, why cannot those fighting injustice boycott Israeli goods?

12. I think the whole world in the interest of justice should boycott doing business with Israel. This is truly a pariah state which is immoral and beyond the pale of human laws.

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The Truth That Found Me - Aliza Kim

2014-01-01T22:41:00.001+08:00

‘The Truth That Found Me’ by Aliza Kim (1 January, 2014)

I've been looking at this blank page for at least 20 minutes now thinking of how I should begin the story I am about to tell you. I have been thinking about its contents for a few days – actually for a few months – but there does not seem to be a satisfactory way for me to start. So I guess I will just begin by introducing myself.

My name is Aliza. I am no different from any of you, but many would say I have experienced some extraordinary things. In my life I have studied at some of the worst schools and also the best schools in the world, had the chance to travel to more than a dozen countries, worked in jobs as varied as you can imagine – from a waitress to a member of senior corporate management, an in-demand model to a military interpreter. I would say that I have had quite a life sprinkled with interesting pockets of struggle, adventure, hardship and a bit of glamour. In fact, this time last year, I was on the cover of at least two magazines and the main feature in another four or five.

But this year is very different.

For the past 12 months, I purposely stayed away from the media and from industry functions; kept to myself in order to find myself. Although much of my work is still in high rotation on TV, my name is fading from the magazines, from the media and from invitation lists. This year, I am surrounded by friends instead of cameras. This year, my heart has more peace than it has ever had. Why? I have found grounding, truth, sincerity and tranquility in religion ... a religion in which I was not born into.

>>> I hope to keep sharing my life experiences, my interests in health and wellness, my food adventures and my views on world issues and much more just as I have been with you long after this story is released. I know that if you are like me, you are someone who sees a person despite their race, religion and gender and are keen to make friends with everyone in a positive and respectful way no matter their walk of life.

I found a religion grounded in peace, sincerity and respect. The name of this religion linguistically translates to ‘submission’ and, when put in a religious context, it means ‘to submit to the one and only God’. This is the same God that Adam, Noah, Moses, Abraham, David and Jesus all worshipped ... the same God that I grew up worshipping and loving as a strong Christian.

But, the religion I have embraced is one that is so misunderstood and so widely feared due to popular culture and current events.

I started to learn about Islam through a sincere attempt to ground myself in Christianity when I needed hope. But my search for hope in Christianity led me to a meticulous academic research in Islam as a religion and as a way of life. I found Islam not through what the media portrays or what I have heard about Muslims, but through historians, scholars, Christian ministers, Biblical experts, Sheikhs, observation of my Muslim friends and what I felt in my own heart. Truth be told, it is not easy for me to open up and tell you my story. And, since most people know me as a strong Christian, I am guessing that many of you who are reading this are surprised by what I am sharing with you. But I hope you will still read on because I am not writing this for personal gain nor am I going to try to convince you of anything. My only hope is to share a little bit about myself with you and give a small glimpse at some of what I have learned about Islam purely for the sake of fostering religious tolerance, respect and friendship.

Humble Beginnings

For those of you who do not know by background, allow me to briefly tell you about myself.

I was born in a tiny little town in Oklahoma, USA, named Enid with a population of under 50,000 compared to the city of 1.5 million that I live in now. After Enid, I moved 12 times to date.

Through the years there have been times of some comfort and times of extreme hardship. I have been near homeless, had so little that I ate government sponsored meals, but I also had the chance to work and study even harder to create a future for myself. Despite the odds, I excelled in school, won academic scholarships and now hold a double Bachelor's Degree in Economics and Sociology and a Masters Degree in International Business.

I also changed dramatically as a person during those years. From a silent small town girl who did not even say a word in school till she turned 12 to a young lady who consciously made a promise to herself to become someone who will succeed in everything she puts her mind to. I began to speak up, became a student leader, then a campus activist, got recognition for some of my achievements from places like the Pentagon in Washington DC and, after obtaining my MBA, landed myself a job where I quickly became Director of Marketing despite my young age.

To people looking at me from the outside, everything seemed smooth ... too easy almost. But, no one could see what was going on inside. Inside, I was a mess.

The Search for Peace

In many ways the events of my life are a blur. And it is a blur in my memory for good reason – to keep away pain, sadness and a bad cycle of self destruction. I don't want to go into detail in this section out of respect for the many people who could be affected by what I write, but what I can say is I fell into a period of clinical depression due to the conditions I lived in, the experiences I had to endure year after year; and when I thought I was about to recover, I made some bad life decisions that derailed my life for several more years. On top of this, I am an extreme introvert who finds it difficult to talk openly to people (even to my parents) and, therefore, prefer to keep everything inside. Plus, I never really had a healthy outlet to help me work through and work out the issues that plagued me. I often pretended to be happy and confident to maintain status quo so no one would ask me anything and I would not have to think about what haunted me. All of this is of course a formula for emotional disaster.

But there was one thing – the only thing that I could always turn to for grounding, to calm myself and to refocus so that I could at least function at work and in life. Religion. I always had God.

The beginning of last year began rather bright for me. I felt a newfound freedom because I was finally making progress in resolving some personal and family issues and was looking forward to starting over on many levels. My career in media was going well with both local and international assignments so I felt like I wanted to experience new things and try out a different lifestyle. I was living a rather private, quiet and humble existence doing my work and spending time at home till then, but because of a lifted burden, I tried being more outgoing, more social, found some hipster friends, started making rounds at the many events and parties around town, and even dabbled a bit in artistic photography where I showed more skin than I had ever before. I felt free and alive but somehow still empty.

Perhaps because the life I was trying to live was so foreign to me and very much not for me, I regretted. And as the emptiness grew, the parties became dull, I got stuck with a sexy image and the hipster friends did not bring out the best in me, to say the least. I began to hate who I was becoming in those short months and I was back to feeling lost, hopeless and confused about the world. I wanted my usual, quiet, boring but wholesome, private life back. So, I cut myself off completely and returned to the one thing that has always grounded and refocused me.

After stopping everything, I promptly turned towards God in hopes of finding the true peace I craved for. And so my journey began...

The Truth That Found Me

As mentioned, this was not the first time I sought God's assistance to calm myself and refocus, but somehow I really wanted it to be the last time. The other times I would refocus just enough to survive my life but this time, I wanted God to be and remain the guide of my life. I wanted religion to be a lifestyle choice for me; not just an element of my life. I had experienced enough in life by now to know the type of person I wanted to be and the kind of life I was most comfortable leading. I wanted to live a pious, clean, peaceful life and wanted purity.

To have purity, I wanted to find the true and simple Church of the early Christians because I thought that should be the correct way to worship God. I was thinking that the people who were with Jesus or his disciples and how they worshipped should be the right way. I found the modern churches too flashy – like a rock concert, and lacking in depth and soul. I also found some of the new Christian theories to clash with my belief system where people should not change religious theory to fit their own desire. A new Christian denomination should not be made every time a group of people disagree with an element or want an addition to what preceded. Therefore, the fact that there are more than 200 denominations in Christianity did not sit well with me. I wanted purity. I wanted the truth. I wanted the correct way of worship.

What I did was set out on an academic exercise. I felt that what I had to do was research Christian history and get my hands on early Christian bibles and manuscripts to get clues as to which church, which denomination is the correct one ... the one I should follow. I know that writers often infuse their reports with their own biases and beliefs so I chose books about Christian History that were written by non-religious historians and Biblical experts. I knew that I had to dig deep and go back to the very beginning of the church because of what I knew about the Bible. As an undergraduate student I studied at a Jesuit college where there were still brown robed monks teaching and tending campus grounds. It was mandatory for students to take up Christian theology classes as part of the curriculum. In one of those classes, the Jesuit who was lecturing taught something that I never forgot. The Bible was put together by a pope. Later on I found out that the chapters of the Bible were also chosen or rejected and there were many conflicting versions. If the Bible was put together by a man or a group of men and different versions conflicted, then what about the religion itself? I had to know. I wanted to know because I wanted to be a good Christian who follows God's commands not what was chosen by a man or a group of men sometime in the past.

At this point, I want to give my utmost respect to my dear Christian friends and family members who may be reading and let you know that I know how beautiful some of the Christian teachings are. I am very proud of the Christian upbringing I received. I am grateful for the values and ideologies Christianity has instilled in me. And, I still love the teachings and life of Jesus till this day. However, the further I looked into history, the more I understood that Christianity and the theories and belief we now hold were put together by a group of men. The more I learned about how much struggle there was to get some concepts like the Trinity approved and accepted shows me that it was just simply that – a concept (and in fact, it has been proven to be a theoretical creation and has been taken out of most reprints of the modern Bible). The more I found out about Paul or Saul, the supposed author of the New Testament, the more compelled I felt to keep researching and searching for the truth. After some time, I concluded that what I needed to do was take a look at the religion that was practiced by Jesus, David, Abraham, Moses, Noah and so on. Not the religion that has been passed down to me. I knew none of these men were Christians. I knew that Jesus was a Jew who spoke Aramaic but not all the great Prophets were. Some of the Prophets were Arabs, some were from other tribes. So, what religion did all of these great men practice? Because that is exactly what I want to practice. They were the best and chosen by God, so whatever they were doing must have been right.

During this time of researching, digging and sincerely searching, a well meaning Muslim friend of mine asked if I had ever learned anything about Islam. Admittedly, I had not. I would like to think that I knew quite a bit about Christianity and a bit about Judaism but the third Abrahamic religion, I knew nothing about. Well, I figured if I am going to find the truth and Islam comes from the same tradition, there must also be clues in Islam for me to uncover. So, I began reading, and reading, and reading, and I could not stop.

I was completely absorbed with the teachings of Islam from the start. As alluded to previously, Islam simply means ‘to submit to the one and only God’. And, a Muslim is someone who submits to the one and only God. When I learned that I thought, well that means every person from the three Abrahamic religions is a Muslim and is practicing Islam then! Well, in a way yes but not quite because in Islam, there is not only an emphasis on the oneness of God but also that since there is only one God there must also logically be only one correct way to worship God as well.

Uh oh ... this is starting to look like what I have been looking for.

As I kept reading I found myself easily understanding the stories of the Prophets of Islam because they were the same Prophets that I grew up learning about in the Christian Bible. I found myself drawn to the way Islam structures religion into a lifestyle and not just an element of life, and I found myself readily accepting the way the Muslims worship God. I began with a book that compared ancient manuscripts in Aramaic, Arabic and Greek. Then I moved onto books that traced the truth of one God through not only Islam, Christianity and Judaism but through many other religions throughout the world. Even polytheistic religions accept that there is one supreme God. Then it was onto books on Islam's view on Jesus and the Christians. Then onto books on Islamic beliefs and so on and so forth. Book after book it was as though each of the 10 to 12 books I read were carefully put in order for me; building on the findings and knowledge gained from the previous books and leading into the next book to be read.

>>> I felt like God was leading me step-by-step and placing each book in the perfect order for me to see the truth. And, even though it was my personal choice to begin the search for truth, I sincerely feel now that the truth had found me.

The last two books I read were of the universality of Islam (how Islam can fit into any culture and race and be a guide for any of life's situations) and a collection of short stories of how other people found Islam. Honestly, as I read about the reversions of others from Christian clergymen to Japanese housewives to young school children in Brazil and would-be gangsters in America, no story hit me more than the story written by a lady from Oklahoma from a Christian background who was searching for truth. When I read her story, it reflected back at me and I cried heavy tears. I knew and was certain then that I had found what I was looking for.

From Now till the Hereafter

Alright, so I found the truth I wanted. Now what?

By this time, even though I had no doubt that Islam is the way to go, the issue of reverting (Muslims use the word "revert" instead of "convert" because it is believe that when a person embraces Islam, they are returning to the correct path of total submission to God after a period of being astray) was still a very difficult and serious decision for me. I had so many fears of how my parents would react, how my friends would react, how my social circles would react and whether I would lose everyone and everything dear to me if I formally accepted Islam into my life. Then there was the issue of work and where my income will come from if I have to end my career in media so that I can dress properly and wear a headscarf. Many thoughts went through my mind during those weeks. But what I concluded was, if God has guided me to Islam then I have no choice but to accept, because I know that He is the most Kind, most Merciful and knows what is best for me. Additionally, if this choice makes me a better daughter, a better friend and a better person and gives me more peace, more hope and more happiness, I believed that the people who love me will still accept me no matter what – even if it takes a bit of time. I also believe that since God is the best Provider and Protector, He will send work my way that not only suits me but is also acceptable in Islam. As these thoughts were firming up in my mind, I thought of getting an American English translation of the Qur'an to read. And, it was on the very day that I asked for a copy of the translation of the Qur'an from one of my Islamic teachers – when he spoke words that pierced my heart and made my eyes overflow with tears – that I formally accepted Islam by reciting the Shahadah or Islamic Testimony of Faith.

What did he say to me? Well, what strikes at the heartstrings of one person may not do the same for another but I will share one of the things he pointed out to me. He said to me, "Why don't you fully submit yourself and become a Muslim? (Keep in mind that Muslim simply means a person who submits to the one and only God.) He knew that I had done extensive research, was reading intensively and had come to the conclusion that Islam is the truth and is right for me. Through our short conversation that day, he also knew that I felt as though I had been a Muslim my whole life but didn't know it. To me, this realization shows that I have already submitted so I replied, "I already have". To which he swiftly replied, "No you haven't". Hearing these words broke my heart. Something ripped inside me and I started to cry. At that moment I realized with full understanding that without declaring and committing myself to a life of submission to the one and only God, I have not truly submitted myself. I felt like I was unknowingly denying God, denying the truth I had found, denying my beliefs when I wanted so very much to be good and submit to God in the correct way. Less than an hour after this realization, I submitted and accept Islam as my way of life.

After reciting the Shahadah, what I felt cannot be accurately described. I felt a rushing sensation go through me which felt like a thorough cleansing. I felt pure and was given lightness, peace and genuine happiness. I had never felt such innocent gladness like that in my life. And, those feelings have stayed on till this day and I know they will be with me till my last day in this world.

I am happy with Allah my Maker and with my chosen religion.

Peace, Hope and Respect

I don't know how my story will be received but I sincerely hope that we will continue to be a part of one another's lives. I hope that we continue sharing our views, sharing our experiences and supporting one another in a positive way. I also hope to make new friends from everywhere, every culture and every religion. I look forward to moving on from my past because what matters is what I do from now into the future. Yes, you will see me dress differently and I may also speak a little bit differently as well but for the most part I will just be an upgraded version of who I was. I want to be a better person. Someone who is more kind, more giving, more thoughtful, more caring, more considerate, more respectful, more gentle, more calm, more understanding and someone who is more conscious of improving herself day in and day out.

I really have to thank my wonderful parents for the love, care and understanding they have given me. Having their support and permission to choose what I believe is best for myself is a true blessing that I am forever grateful for.

Lastly, I pray that all of you will also find peace, hope and respect in your own lives.

Assalamu’alaikum (Peace be upon you)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For those of you who are interested, here are just a few things I find attractive about Islam. Just to share.

1.    ‘Allah’. I like the fact that in Islam, God is called by His proper name, ‘Allah’. Just like my name is Aliza and your name might be John, God's proper name is Allah. It makes my relationship with Allah that much more personal and touches my heart even more. At first I was not sure because I have heard other names being used by Christian and Jewish theorists. But with more investigation, Allah (or a derivative) is used by not only the Muslims but also the Jews, Christians and other religions. If you want further reading you can go to the ultimate non-religious source, wikipedia, and read about this yourself.

2.    Sincere Care for Community: Fasting, Charity. I have found that in Islam, more than any other religion, there is a sense of social responsibility for the less fortunate among us. Fasting and giving to charity annually are compulsory in Islam. But, the reasons might be different from what you think.

a.    Fasting during the month of Ramadan is fasting from all pleasures and evils. This not only means no food or drink between dawn and dusk but also no sexual acts, no bad thoughts, no bad actions and no bad speech during those hours as well. Fasting in this way is for a few reasons: to become more sensitive to the struggle of those around the world who are less fortunate and live in hunger all the time, to train ourselves to control our desires and bad habits, to purify ourselves from the minor sins of the past year, and to gain rewards from self sacrifice.

b.    Annual giving to charity is obligatory for all Muslims. The amount is 2.5% of all accumulated wealth from the past year. Money is collected and redistributed to the groups in society that need it most. There is a list of people who can receive these funds, such as orphaned children, etc. Those who are better off have the obligation to always remember and help those at the bottom of society. I think this is brilliant.

3.    Purity and Respect: Keeping things Halal. For most people, the word ‘halal’ refers to the type of food Muslims are allowed to eat, but it's much more than that. The word ‘halal’ refers to what is lawful or permissible in Islam. All things that are good for you, beneficial, clean and pure are halal. Everything that is harmful, evil or dirty are not halal. The Muslims that I know (and the kind of Muslim I want to be) also put a huge stress on making sure their actions, thoughts and speech are all halal (good and pure) as well. Let me give you an example: in Islam gossiping and backbiting are major sins that can send a person straight to Hellfire. Here's another example, in Islam, men and women are not supposed to look directly at one another for fear of having inappropriate thoughts which is a sin on both the person who had the thought and the person that caused the thought to appear. Yes, this might seem a bit over the top because it's just looking but, if you can follow the thought process, I find it incredible how detailed Islam is in deterring sin and maintaining the highest level of respect for others at all times.

4.    Protection and Liberation: Dressing the part. To a lot of people around the world, the way Muslim women dress seems awfully restricting and oppressive. But, with a bit more knowledge, there is a lot of wisdom and liberation behind covering up. In Islam, the woman is so precious and so beautiful that special precaution is taken to protect her honor and intellect. Covering properly is a precaution against the many possible dangers that could arise from seeing a woman's skin and shape. But that's not all. Covering properly also frees the woman from sexual objectification. A person speaking to a properly dressed Muslim woman is forced to first take note of her intelligence, speech, thoughts, manners and character instead of her fashion sense, body shape and hairstyle. The correct Hijab (covering) for women has three main elements: it covers the woman's entire body except the face and hands, it is not transparent, and is loose enough to conceal the shape or size of her body. In addition, the headscarf she uses should also cover her chest and what she wears should not draw unnecessary attention to herself as it defeats the purpose of dressing modestly. Truth be told, it was quite easy for me to start dressing this way. Traditionally, in my culture, covering up more showed that you knew how to protect yourself and your honor. Shoes that cover the entire foot is also the norm as covering the feet is a sign of respect. So, switching from my normal daily outfits (jeans, tee shirt, cardigan, sport shoes) to something more Islamically correct was just a matter of wearing looser clothes and covering my hair. And, you know what? Now every man who comes in contact with me stays at a respectful three to four foot distance, lowers his gaze out of respect and listens intently whenever I speak. It worked! I am empowered and protected at the same time. **Note: This doesn't mean that a woman has to dress poorly. A woman is still a woman and should dress femininely and nicely. I actually find it quite fun to do up my headscarf. It's like learning to dress all over again.

5.    Solat: The five daily prayers. While many people see praying five times a day a bit extreme, to me it all makes sense. When prayer is not obligatory, it is so easy to forget to communicate with God for weeks at a time. Making prayer compulsory ensures a continuous connection with God. For Muslims, prayer also cleanses minor sins and deters sinning because it reminds us to remember God all day and to do only what will get us to Heaven. I imagine many of you might be curious as to what Muslims say during prayers. It would be too long to write everything here but I can share a recitation that all Muslims must perform every time they pray to show you that there is nothing scary in all that mumbling we do. This is a simplified translation of the first verse of the first chapter of the Qur'an called ‘Al-Fatihah’.

In the name of Allah, the most Beneficent, the most Merciful.

All praises are due to Allah the Lord of the Worlds (all of Creation).
The most Beneficent, the most Merciful. Lord of the Last Day (Judgment Day).
It's You who we worship, it's You who we ask for assistance.
Keep us on the Straight Path. The Path of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace,
not (the way) of those who have earned Your Wrath, nor of those who have lost their way (gone astray).
Ameen.

6.    The Qur'an: A scientific miracle. There are so many scientific references in the Qur'an it is almost unbelievable. But first and foremost we have to remember that the Qur'an has been unaltered since it was revealed (much research has been done on this and all confirm the unchanged authenticity of the Qur'an) and that it was revealed in a time when there were no microscopes, no marine biology equipment, no radars, no geological studies and the like. Despite this, the Qur'an explains in detail embryonic development, it mentions the place where the two oceans meet but don't mix (Gulf of Alaska), it mentions the structure of mountains and how they are like pegs in the earth and so much more. There is so much recorded in the Qur'an that scientists are only just discovering and understanding them now. So much so that many world renowned scientists, after reading the Qur'an, accepted Islam soon after. They concluded that only the master planner of the world can know such things before they are actually discovered by science. If you would like to read more about the science that is present in the Qur'an, you can start your research with the book ‘A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam’ by I.A. Ibrahim (1997).

7.    Notable Reverts: Please Youtube these people. These are just a few people I found interesting but there are many more notable reverts who have shared their stories on Youtube that you can watch.
a.    Yvonne Ridley, ex-Taliban captive and internationally acclaimed news correspondent.
b.    Yusof Estes, former Christian preacher and entrepreneur.
c.    Lauren Booth, Tony Blair's sister-in-law and news correspondent formerly based in Gaza.
d.    There have been many American military veterans who have reverted to Islam after serving in the Middle East. You can search for ‘American soldier Islam’ in Youtube.

ISRAEL ZIONIST'S IDF SNIPERS ARE SON OF THE BITCHES

2013-12-09T00:29:00.003+08:00

The funeral of Wajih Al-Ramahi, 14 years of age, was shot with live bullets in the back by an Israeli sniper in front of his school on Saturday, December 07, 2013.
Al-Ramahi was taken to Ramallah hospital, and placed in the ICU until he died.

Locals reported that the area where Al-Ramahi was shot had no clashes or any kind of rock-throwing incidents that might have provoked the killing. He was killed in cold blood.

PS: Barack Obama Does Nothing FUCK

A Letter from Nelson Mandela to Thomas Friedman (Columnist of New York Times aka Zionist's SOTB )

2013-12-07T00:12:00.003+08:00

by Arjan El Fassed (Media Monitors Network)
March 30, 2001

To: Thomas L. Friedman (columnist New York Times)
From: Nelson Mandela (former President South Africa)

Dear Thomas,

I know that you and I long for peace in the Middle East, but before you continue to talk about necessary conditions from an Israeli perspective, you need to know what's on my mind. Where to begin? How about 1964. Let me quote my own words during my trial. They are true today as they were then:

"I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

Today the world, black and white, recognise that apartheid has no future. In South Africa it has been ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. That mass campaign of defiance and other actions could only culminate in the establishment of democracy.

Perhaps it is strange for you to observe the situation in Palestine or more specifically, the structure of political and cultural relationships between Palestinians and Israelis, as an apartheid system. This is because you incorrectly think that the problem of Palestine began in 1967. This was demonstrated in your recent column "Bush's First Memo" in the New York Times on March 27, 2001.

You seem to be surprised to hear that there are still problems of 1948 to be solved, the most important component of which is the right to return of Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not just an issue of military occupation and Israel is not a country that was established "normally" and happened to occupy another country in 1967. Palestinians are not struggling for a "state" but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa.

In the last few years, and especially during the reign of the Labour Party, Israel showed that it was not even willing to return what it occupied in 1967; that settlements remain, Jerusalem would be under exclusive Israeli sovereignty, and Palestinians would not have an independent state, but would be under Israeli economic domination with Israeli control of borders, land, air, water and sea.

Israel was not thinking of a "state" but of "separation". The value of separation is measured in terms of the ability of Israel to keep the Jewish state Jewish, and not to have a Palestinian minority that could have the opportunity to become a majority at some time in the future. If this takes place, it would force Israel to either become a secular democratic or bi-national state, or to turn into a state of apartheid not only de facto, but also de jure.

Thomas, if you follow the polls in Israel for the last 30 or 40 years, you clearly find a vulgar racism that includes a third of the population who openly declare themselves to be racist. This racism is of the nature of "I hate Arabs" and "I wish Arabs would be dead". If you also follow the judicial system in Israel you will see there is discrimination against
Palestinians, and if you further consider the 1967 occupied territories you will find there are already two judicial systems in operation that represent two different approaches to human life: one for Palestinian life and the other for Jewish life. Additionally there are two different approaches to property and to land. Palestinian property is not recognised as private property because it can be confiscated.

As to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there is an additional factor. The so-called "Palestinian autonomous areas" are bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system.

The Palestinian state cannot be the by-product of the Jewish state, just in order to keep the Jewish purity of Israel. Israel's racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights which non-Jews cannot do. Palestinian Arabs have no place in a "Jewish" state.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.

The responses made by South Africa to human rights abuses emanating from the removal policies and apartheid policies respectively, shed light on what Israeli society must necessarily go through before one can speak of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and an end to its apartheid policies.

Thomas, I'm not abandoning Mideast diplomacy. But I'm not going to indulge you the way your supporters do. If you want peace and democracy, I will support you. If you want formal apartheid, we will not support you. If you want to support racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing, we will oppose you. When you figure out what you're about, give me a call.

PS: ANY JEWS WHO SUPPORT THE DESTRUCTION OF " PALESTINE " ARE SUPPORTING THE MORON ZIONISM

PANADOL = Paracetomol = Acetaminophen = Tylenol and Others Kill Snakes...SNAKES ??

2013-12-04T01:19:00.000+08:00

They floated down from the sky Sunday — 2,000 mice, wafting on tiny cardboard parachutes over Andersen Air Force Base in the U.S. territory of Guam.But the rodent commandos didn't know they were on a mission: to help eradicate the brown tree snake, an invasive species that has caused millions of dollars in wildlife and commercial losses since it arrived a few decades ago.That's because they were dead. And pumped full of painkillers. The unlikely invasion was the fourth and biggest rodent air assault so far, part of an $8 million U.S. program approved in February to eradicate the snakes and save the exotic native birds that are their snack food.

"Every time there is a technique that is tested and shows promise, we jump on that bandwagon and promote it and help out and facilitate its implementation," Tino Aguon, acting chief of the U.S. Agriculture Department's wildlife resources office for Guam.
It's not just birds the government is trying to protect. It's also money.
Andersen, like other large industrial complexes on the Western Pacific island, is regularly bedeviled by power failures caused when the snakes wriggle their way into electric substations — an average of 80 a year, costing as much as $4 million in annual repair costs and lost productivity, the Interior Department estimated in 2005.

The U.S. has tried lots of ways to eliminate the snakes, which it says likely arrived in an inadequately inspected cargo shipment sometime in the 1950s.Snake traps, snake-sniffing dogs and snake-hunting inspectors have all helped control the population, but the snakes have proved especially hardy and now infest the entire island. Guam is home to an estimated 2 million of the reptiles, which in some areas reach a density of 13,000 per square mile — more concentrated than even in the Amazonian rainforests, the government says.But brown tree snakes have an Achilles' heel: Tylenol.
For some reason, the snakes are almost uniquely sensitive to acetaminophen, the active ingredient in the ubiquitous over-the-counter painkiller. If you can get a tree snake to eat just 80 milligrams, you can kill it. That's only about one-sixth of a standard pill — pigs, dogs and other similarly sized animals would have to eat about 500 of them to get into any trouble.
Brown tree snakes also love mice. It's easy to bait mice with acetaminophen, but how do you then deliver the mice to the snakes?"The process is quite simple," Dan Vice, the Agriculture Department's assistant supervisory wildlife biologist for Guam, told KUAM.

Helicopters make low-altitude flights over the base's forested areas, dropping their furry bundles on a timed sequence. Each mouse is laced with the deadly microdose of acetaminophen and strung up to two pieces of cardboard and green tissue paper.
"The cardboard is heavier than the tissue paper and opens up in an inverted horseshoe," Vice said. "It then floats down and ultimately hangs up in the forest canopy. Once it's hung in the forest canopy, snakes have an opportunity to consume the bait."
Wildlife workers do have a way to chart how well the mice work. In addition to the acetaminophen and the parachutes, some of the poison pests also come equipped with tiny data-transmitting radios.

DETAILS ----> http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/02/21724382-two-thousand-mice-dropped-on-guam-by-parachute-to-kill-snakes#comments

Mentally Strong People: The 13 Things They Avoid

2013-11-30T17:34:00.000+08:00

***En-route to be a successful entrepreneur

***Listen & Take Note!

Prewords

For all the time executives spend concerned about physical strength and health, when it comes down to it, mental strength can mean even more. Particularly for entrepreneurs, numerous articles talk about critical characteristics of mental strength—tenacity, “grit,” optimism, and an unfailing ability as Forbes contributor David Williams says, to “fail up.”
However, we can also define mental strength by identifying the things mentally strong individuals don’t do. Over the weekend, I was impressed by this list compiled by Amy Morin, a psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker, that she shared in LifeHack. It impressed me enough I’d also like to share her list here along with my thoughts on how each of these items is particularly applicable to entrepreneurs.

1. Waste Time Feeling Sorry for Themselves. You don’t see mentally strong people feeling sorry for their circumstances or dwelling on the way they’ve been mistreated. They have learned to take responsibility for their actions and outcomes, and they have an inherent understanding of the fact that frequently life is not fair. They are able to emerge from trying circumstances with self-awareness and gratitude for the lessons learned. When a situation turns out badly, they respond with phrases such as “Oh, well.” Or perhaps simply, “Next!”
2. Give Away Their Power. Mentally strong people avoid giving others the power to make them feel inferior or bad. They understand they are in control of their actions and emotions. They know their strength is in their ability to manage the way they respond.
3. Shy Away from Change. Mentally strong people embrace change and they welcome challenge. Their biggest “fear,” if they have one, is not of the unknown, but of becoming complacent and stagnant. An environment of change and even uncertainty can energize a mentally strong person and bring out their best.
4. Waste Energy on Things They Can’t Control. Mentally strong people don’t complain (much) about bad traffic, lost luggage, or especially about other people, as they recognize that all of these factors are generally beyond their control. In a bad situation, they recognize that the one thing they can always control is their own response and attitude, and they use these attributes well.
5. Worry About Pleasing Others. Know any people pleasers? Or, conversely, people who go out of their way to dis-please others as a way of reinforcing an image of strength? Neither position is a good one. A mentally strong person strives to be kind and fair and to please others where appropriate, but is unafraid to speak up. They are able to withstand the possibility that someone will get upset and will navigate the situation, wherever possible, with grace.

It takes much practice to hone mental strength

6. Fear Taking Calculated Risks. A mentally strong person is willing to take calculated risks. This is a different thing entirely than jumping headlong into foolish risks. But with mental strength, an individual can weigh the risks and benefits thoroughly, and will fully assess the potential downsides and even the worst-case scenarios before they take action.
7. Dwell on the Past. There is strength in acknowledging the past and especially in acknowledging the things learned from past experiences—but a mentally strong person is able to avoid miring their mental energy in past disappointments or in fantasies of the “glory days” gone by. They invest the majority of their energy in creating an optimal present and future.
8. Make the Same Mistakes Over and Over. We all know the definition of insanity, right? It’s when we take the same actions again and again while hoping for a different and better outcome than we’ve gotten before. A mentally strong person accepts full responsibility for past behavior and is willing to learn from mistakes. Research shows that the ability to be self-reflective in an accurate and productive way is one of the greatest strengths of spectacularly successful executives and entrepreneurs.
9. Resent Other People’s Success. It takes strength of character to feel genuine joy and excitement for other people’s success. Mentally strong people have this ability. They don’t become jealous or resentful when others succeed (although they may take close notes on what the individual did well). They are willing to work hard for their own chances at success, without relying on shortcuts.
10. Give Up After Failure. Every failure is a chance to improve. Even the greatest entrepreneurs are willing to admit that their early efforts invariably brought many failures. Mentally strong people are willing to fail again and again, if necessary, as long as the learning experience from every “failure” can bring them closer to their ultimate goals.
11. Fear Alone Time. Mentally strong people enjoy and even treasure the time they spend alone. They use their downtime to reflect, to plan, and to be productive. Most importantly, they don’t depend on others to shore up their happiness and moods. They can be happy with others, and they can also be happy alone.
12. Feel the World Owes Them Anything. Particularly in the current economy, executives and employees at every level are gaining the realization that the world does not owe them a salary, a benefits package and a comfortable life, regardless of their preparation and schooling. Mentally strong people enter the world prepared to work and succeed on their merits, at every stage of the game.

13. Expect Immediate Results. Whether it’s a workout plan, a nutritional regimen, or starting a business, mentally strong people are “in it for the long haul”. They know better than to expect immediate results. They apply their energy and time in measured doses and they celebrate each milestone and increment of success on the way. They have “staying power.” And they understand that genuine changes take time. Do you have mental strength? Are there elements on this list you need more of? With thanks to Amy Morin, I would like to reinforce my own abilities further in each of these areas today. How about you?

The 4 Personalities of Poor Email Signatures

2013-11-25T11:19:00.003+08:00

An email signature should provide some very basic information about who you are, what you do and how you can be reached. But the possible ways to format that information are boundless.
If you get the constant barrage of incoming mail, like I do, you probably have seen a nice variety of email signatures. And I’m sure there have been some that make you wonder what the sender was thinking. The bottom line is there are certain formats that work better than others in getting your information across in an effective and unobtrusive way (more on that later).
I did some scanning of archived messages, and I noticed there are certainly some patterns in how people sign and close out their messages. I’ve grouped the four most conspicuous formats into four common personality types. Oh, and please note that all references to “John Smith” are fictional and do not apply to a real person.

1. The Novelist

The novelist has an email signature that spans an entire screen length. They provide a lot of information – way too much information — in complete sentences that almost feels like a second email within an email. They typically include links to a handful of web sites, a summary of their experience and current endeavors, every type of contact information they have, a special deal or free teleclass, and close it out with a favorite quote or two.

2. The Standout

The standout loves using bold fonts, bright colors and enlarged text. And they format every line differently. The standout’s email signature is a rainbow of blue, green, orange and pink. They also use email stationery and change their theme weekly. And when they make the change, they sometimes forget to change the font colors to accommodate the new background color. So it’s not unusual for the recipient to be reading yellow text on a white background, or red on purple.

3. The Graphic Addict

The graphic addict typically includes their company logo, a headshot, and assorted social media icons in their email signature. They freshen up their signature with Microsoft clipart for holidays and special events, and tend to just resize the graphics inline, instead of reducing the file size and optimizing them. They usually don’t test their signature on various email clients, so their messages may be ridden with broken images, or all of the images are included as attachments.

4. The Mysterious

The mysterious sender rarely uses an email signature. In fact, they usually don’t even sign their name. True, it’s usually clear who the message is coming from, but it can be highly puzzling to recipients they don’t communicate with often, and very frustrating to those who need a phone number or other contact information. The mysterious sender is also known for using a lot of abbreviations in their messages and providing little clarification.

Okay, as fun as this exercise has been, there is a point. There is a way to create an effective email signature and avoid being lumped into one of the signature-challenged groups listed above. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, which will provide tips to help you improve your email signature.
What are some of your email signature stories? Have you seen (or used) a dancing Santa?

PS: Therefore,writing like a PRO professional :)

Female Masturbation: Yes, Yes, Yes....There's an app for that!!

2013-06-26T08:50:00.000+08:00

It's cutesy and patronising, but the Happy Playtime app may in a roundabout way teach women there's no shame in masturbation.

'Any woman gamely negotiating her neglected areas is probably going to be put off by the Happy Playtime colour scheme.'

Masturbation was my biggest teenage secret. Alongside the other clueless virgins at my all-girls school, I was happy to guess and gossip about the most obscure aspects of sex – as a gang of young women reaching adolescence when the Clinton scandal was in full swing, we had a lot of questions – but we would never, ever, ever admit to touching ourselves. Our interest in sex could be all-consuming, as long as it was dispassionate. We would not allow ourselves to experience desire. A friend confided that she masturbated once, over her clothes, just to see how it felt – but swore me to absolute secrecy (sorry, Helen.) She spend the rest of the afternoon bitching about all the weird girls in our year who "probably did it properly", and I joined in eagerly and enthusiastically, frightened of giving myself away, pretending I believed the space under my knickers was as smooth, solid and impenetrable as Barbie's.

Now I'm marginally older and wiser, I am proud to out myself as a wanker. Masturbating should not be a source of shame. It should be done joyfully and regularly by any man or woman who fancies it. I didn't think I was alone in my alone-time habit – but app designer Tina Gong seems to believe women need some encouragement. She has designed an app called Happy Playtime, to facilitate female masturbation. According to an infographic on Gong's app, 46.6% of women touch themselves less than once a month. This might seem surprising, but think of the way women's sexuality is discussed in the media. Rape, objectification and harassment make headlines daily. It's imperative that we keep talking about issues and instances of inequality, but the news is, to use the technical term, a boner killer. Collectively, we've forgotten that sex should be pleasurable, rewarding and joyful for men and women.

The trouble with Gong's app is that it feels patronising. Any woman gamely negotiating her neglected areas is probably going to be put off by the colour scheme, which features more pink than a Paris Hilton perfume launch. Similarly, there's something strange and infantilising about the cartoon instructions. There's a range of reasons why women might choose not to masturbate, from a lack of libido to a lack of time, but they're probably not avoiding it because they needed some cute graphic design instructions to make it look fun.

In itself, the app might not be the answer to the problem that it sets out to solve – but I hope that it will start the conversations that eventually allow all women to enjoy their sexuality freely and fearlessly. Masturbation gives women agency. It delivers us from the world in which sex is something people perform or are threatened with, and allows us to experience desire and pleasure without becoming vulnerable. Sex is used everywhere from advertising to intimidation – sometimes female sexual pleasure doesn't even seem to be on the agenda. When we masturbate, we can please ourselves exclusively without hurting anyone.

The record sales for 50 Shades of Grey distressed literary critics worldwide, but they also demonstrated that women everywhere were crying out for fuel for their erotic imaginations. Any feminist reading of the novel would conclude that Christian Grey is not an obvious poster boy for the empowerment of women. And yet, the story prompted millions of women to fantasise and explore their bodies in their own time and in their own terms. Though it might not be recommended reading for the teenage audience who loved the Twilight novels that inspired it.

I hope that the 50 Shades effect, and apps such as Happy Playtime, will help future generations of teenage girls to learn that their bodies are meant for their own pleasure, not other people's gratification – and that they have the right to masturbate without shame.

PS: MEN:hmmmmmm

THE BRITISH MANDATE

2013-06-25T21:50:00.001+08:00

THE BRITISH MANDATE

The British Mandate became effective in September 1923. The Balfour Declaration was included in the document regulating the Mandate: The British government was to help facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.

The Mandate was supposed to have been created as a tool to protect the interests of the indigenous population – the Palestinians. But the fact that the Balfour Declaration was included in the Mandate document calls into question the validity of the mandate itself. How could the rights of the indigenous population be respected and protected when the same document calling for that also gives Britain the authority to facilitate the creation of a national home for the Jews?

The Zionist Organization under the leadership of its president Dr. Chaim Weizmann helped draft the Mandate document and insisted that the phrase “Recognizing the historic rights of the Jews to Palestine,” be included in the preamble. Lord George Curzon contested this phrase and it was changed to “historical connection.”

The Zionist connection to the Palestine Mandate

Posted in The British Mandate

Excerpted from the report “The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1988,” by UNISPAL - Division for Palestinian Rights (DPR), June 30, 1978

The Zionist connection to mandated Palestine

The contradictions inherent in the Mandate for Palestine arose from the incorporation in it of the Balfour Declaration. The importance of gaining international support for a Jewish State was recognized from the outset for several reasons:

(a) To consolidate divergent Jewish opinion behind Zionist policies;

(b) To draw the support of European Powers to harmonize with British policy;

(c) To obtain some form of international approval for the enterprise.
Weizmann is quoting as stating that the effort of zionism must be "... to make the Jewish question an international one. It means going to the nations and saying, 'we need your help to achieve our aim'". 41/

The Zionist Commission

The first move was the dispatch to Palestine in April 1918 of a Zionist Commission consisting of Dr. Weizmann and Zionist representatives from France and Italy, accompanied by British officials. The telegram to the British High Commission in Egypt outlined its task:
"... object of Commission is to carry out ... any steps required to give effect to government declaration in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people ...

"Among the most important functions of the Commission will be the establishment of good relations with the Arabs and other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and to establish the Commission as the link between the military authorities and the Jewish population and Jewish interests in Palestine.

"It is most important that everything should be done to obtain authority from the Commission in the eyes of the Jewish world, and at the same time allay Arab suspicions regarding the true aims of zionism. ..." 42/

Although formally still part of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine was under British military occupation since December 1917. Palestinian apprehension over the intents of the Balfour Declaration had been reported to London by the military authorities, and when the Zionist Commission arrived in Jerusalem, Weizmann wrote the Foreign Office:

"We were prepared to find a certain amount of hostility on the part of the Arabs and Syrians, based largely on misconception of our real aims, and we have always realized that one of our principal duties would be to dispel misconceptions and to endeavour to arrive at an amicable understanding with the non-Jewish elements of the population on the basis of the declared policy of His Majesty's Government. But we find among the Arabs and Syrians, or certain sections of them, a state of mind which seems to us to make useful negotiations impossible at the present moment, and so far as we are aware - though here our information may be incomplete - no official steps have been taken to bring home to the Arabs and Syrians the fact that His Majesty's Government has expressed a definite policy with regard to the future of the Jews in Palestine". 43/

The Military Governor, Colonel (later Sir) Ronald Storrs, commented:
"I cannot agree that, as Dr. Weizmann would seem to suggest, it is the business of the military authorities to 'bring home to the Arabs and Syrians the fact that His Majesty's Government has expressed a definite policy with regard to the future of the Jews in Palestine'. This has already been done by Mr. Balfour in London, and by the press throughout the world. What is wanted is that the Zionists themselves should bring home to the Arabs and Syrians an exposition at once as accurate and conciliatory as possible of their real aims and policy in the country;...

"Speaking myself as a convinced Zionist, I cannot help thinking that the Commission are lacking in a sense of the dramatic actuality. Palestine, up to now a Moslem country, has fallen into the hands of a Christian Power which on the eve of its conquest announced that a considerable portion of its land is to be handed over for colonization purposes to a nowhere very popular people. The dispatch of a Commission of these people is subsequently announced ... From the announcement in the British press until this moment there has been no sign of a hostile demonstration public or private against a project which if we may imagine England for Palestine can hardly open for the inhabitants the beatific vision of a new heaven and a new earth. The Commission was warned in Cairo of the numerous and grave misconceptions with which their enterprise was regarded and strongly advised to make a public pronouncement to put an end to those misconceptions. No such pronouncement has yet been made; ..." 43/

The Commission completed its stay in Palestine, and the Zionist Organization prepared itself for the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Proposals were submitted to the Foreign Office for consideration at the Conference. Lord Curzon (then Foreign Secretary and formerly Viceroy of India and Lord President of the Council) commented to Balfour on these proposals:
"... As for Weizmann and Palestine, I entertain no doubt that he is out for a Jewish Government, if not at the moment then in the near future ...

"What all this can mean except Government I do not see. Indeed a Commonwealth as defined in my dictionary is a 'body politic' a 'State' an 'independent community' a 'republic'.

"I feel tolerably sure therefor that while Weizmann may say one thing to you, or while you may mean one thing by a national home, he is out for something quite different. He contemplates a Jewish State, a Jewish nation, a subordinate population of Arabs, etc. ruled by Jews; the Jews in possession of the fat of the land, and directing the Administration.

"He is trying to effect this behind the screen and under the shelter of British trusteeship.

"I do not envy those who wield the latter, when they realize the pressure to which they are certain to be exposed. ..." 44/

The Paris Peace Conference

The delegation of the Hijaz (now Saudi Arabia), led by Sherif Husain's son, Emir Feisal, was the only Arab delegation at the Conference, and presented the Arab case for independence, although their credentials were not recognized by all Arab leaders. Feisal relied heavily for guidance on the British Government, which had sponsored his participation in the Conference. His position is described by George Antonius:
"... the pressure to which he was being subjected in London was telling on him. He felt keenly the insufficiency of his equipment, his ignorance of English, his unfamiliarity with the methods of European diplomacy ... It added to his sense of weakness and isolation that he knew the French to be hostile to his person and to his mission: apart from the scant courtesy with which he had been treated on his passage through France, he had had a multitude of signs to show him that his own distrust of the French was unfeignedly reciprocated. He allowed himself to be persuaded that his chances of neutralizing the hostility of the French would be greater if he could see his way to meeting Great Britain's wishes to the fullest possible extent." 45/

Feisal apparently did not fully appreciate the implications of Zionist aims. He could play no significant role in the Conference and, influenced by British officials, he presented a brief memorandum dated 1 January 1919 to the Paris Peace Conference, outlining the case for the independence of Arab countries. The paragraph relating to Palestine reads, in stilted and peculiar language:
"In Palestine, the enormous majority of the people are Arabs. The Jews are very close to the Arabs in blood, and there is no conflict of character between the two races. In principles we are absolutely at one. Nevertheless, the Arabs cannot risk assuming the responsibility of holding level the scales in the clash of races and religions that have, in this one province, so often involved the world in difficulties. They would wish for the effective super-position of a great trustee, so long as a representative local administration commended itself by actively promoting the material prosperity of the country." 46/

It is evident that although prompted to say that "there is no conflict of char acter between the two races ... In principles we are absolutely at one", Feisal in no manner consented to the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, but only implied acceptance of a mandate.

The ambiguity in the wording of Feisal's proposals might have stemmed not only from his unfamiliarity with international diplomacy, but also from the need to retain flexibility for the political ambitions of Sherif Husain and his sons to extend their suzerainty over as wide an area as possible. Thus Feisal's claim to being an interlocuteur valable has been questioned by Palestinian leaders. The significant point is the absence of representation of the Palestinian principals in decision on their fate, a characteristic also of subsequent rulings on Palestine.

Both Weizmann and Sokolow spoke before the Conference, where the Zionist Organization presented a detailed memorandum (drafted by a Committee including Samuel and Sykes), whose introductory portions, suggesting the alienation of Palestinian sovereignty, read:
"The Zionist Organization respectfully submits the following draft resolutions for the consideration of the Peace Conference:

1. The High Contracting Parties recognize the historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine and the right of the Jews to reconstitute in Palestine their national home ...

3. The sovereign possession of Palestine shall be vested in the League of Nations and the Government entrusted to Great Britain as Mandatory of the League ...

5. The Mandate shall be subject also to the following special conditions:

(1) Palestine shall be placed under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment there of the Jewish national home and ultimately render possible the creation of an autonomous Commonwealth ..." 47/

However, during meetings on the mandates question of the Allied Supreme Council, President Wilson declared that "one of the fundamental principles to which the United States of America adhered was the consent of the governed" and proposed the dispatch of an inter-allied commission "... to elucidate the state of opinion and the soil to be worked on by any mandatory". This proposal materialized in the "King-Crane" Commission, and it was agreed that its jurisdiction would include Palestine. 48/

The King-Crane Commission

For their own reasons both Britain and France did not nominate members to the Commission. According to Anthony Nutting, "Britain and France backed out rather than find themselves confronted by recommendations from their own appointed delegates which might conflict with their policies". 49/ President Wilson appointed two Americans, Henry King and Charles Crane.

Soon after the Commission arrived in Damascus, Arab nationalists, meeting as the "General Syrian Congress", including representatives from Lebanon and Palestine, adopted a resolution to be presented to the Commission. The resolution asked for full independence for Syria (including Lebanon and Palestine), rejecting any form of foreign influence or control. The resolution included the first formal declaration of Arab opposition to the plans being made for Palestine:
"We oppose the pretensions of the Zionists to create a Jewish Commonwealth in the southern part of Syria, known as Palestine, and oppose Zionist migration to any part of our country, for we do not acknowledge their title but consider them a grave peril to our people from the national, economical, and political points of view. Our Jewish compatriots shall enjoy our common rights and assume the common responsibilities." 50/
The Commission's report recommended that, in view of the opposition to French influence, consideration be given to an American mandate over Syria. The portions dealing with Palestine recommended:
"... serious modification of the extreme Zionist programme for Palestine of unlimited immigration of Jews, looking finally to making Palestine distinctly a Jewish State ..."
Referring to President Wilson's preparation of the principle of self-determination, the Commission stated:
"If that principle is to rule, and so the wishes of Palestine's population are to be decisive as to what is to be done with Palestine, then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish population of Palestine - nearly nine-tenths of the whole - are emphatically against the entire Zionist programme. The tables show that there was no one thing upon which the population of Palestine were more agreed than upon this. To subject a people so minded to unlimited Jewish immigration, and to steady financial and social pressure to surrender the land, would be a gross violation of the principle just quoted, and of the peoples' rights though it kept within the forms of law;..."The Peace Conference should not shut its eyes to the fact that the anti-Zionist feeling in Palestine and Syria is intense and not lightly to be flouted. No British Officer consulted by the Commissioners believed that the Zionist programme could be carried out except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than 50,000 soldiers would be required even to initiate the programme. That of itself is evidence of a strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist programme, on the part of the non-Jewish populations of Palestine and Syria. Decisions, requiring armies to carry out, are sometimes necessary, but they are surely not gratuitously to be taken in the interests of a serious injustice. For the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a "right" to Palestine, based on an occupation of two thousand years ago, can hardly be seriously considered." 51/

Allied policy on Palestine

The Commission's recommendations received little attention and in any case were to become moot with the United States' decision to stay out of the League. Meanwhile, the actual policy for Palestine was being given final shape. Balfour told Justice Brandeis, leader of the Zionist movement in the United States:
"The situation is further complicated by an agreement made early in November (1918) by the British and French, and brought to the President's attention, telling the people of the East that their wishes would be consulted in the disposition of their future;... Palestine should be excluded from the terms of reference because the Powers had committed themselves to the Zionist programme which inevitably excluded numerical self-determination. Palestine presented a unique situation. We are dealing not with the wishes of an existing community but are consciously seeking to reconstitute a new community and definitely building for a numerical majority in the future ..." 52/

In a memorandum to Lord Curzon on 11 August 1919, Balfour candidly wrote:
"The contradiction between the letters of the Covenant and the policy of the Allies is even more flagrant in the case of the 'independent nation' of Palestine than in that of the 'independent nation' of Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country, though the American Commission has been going through the form of asking what they are.

"The four Great Powers are committed to zionism. And zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.

"In my opinion that is right. What I have never been able to understand is how it can be harmonized with the (Anglo-French) declaration of November 1918, the Covenant, or the instructions to the Commission of Enquiry.

"I do not think that zionism will hurt the Arabs, but they will never say they want it. Whatever be the future of Palestine, it is not now an 'independent nation', nor is it yet on the way to become one. Whatever deference should be paid to the view of those living there, the Powers in their selection of a mandatory do not propose, as I understand the matter, to consult them. In short, so far as Palestine is concerned, the Powers have made no statement of fact which is not admittedly wrong, and no declaration of policy which, at least in the letter, they have not always intended to violate;..." 53/

The final disposition of Palestine was decided by the Allied Supreme Council at the San Remo Conference on 25 April 1920. The process has been described as follows:
"The allocation of the Mandate was for several reasons a slow process. In the first place, it hung upon the Anglo-French agreement as to the validity of the Sykes-Picot arrangements for the whole of the ex-Turkish territories, and this was held up by discord over Syria and Mosul, involving discussions très vives de ton between Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd George. As a result of the compromise, Palestine, which had under the Sykes-Picot plan been destined for international administration, in the end passed by mutual consent into British tutelage." 54/
The decision was taken without any heed to the requirement of article 22 of the Covenant that "the wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of a Mandatory".

The decision of the Allied Powers to support Zionist aims drew protest from Palestinians. Citizens of Nazareth reminded the British Administrator in Jerusalem:
"In view of the declaration of the decision of the Peace Conference regarding the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, we hereby beg to declare that we are the owners of this country and the land is our national home ..." 55/
The drafting of the Palestine Mandate

Undeterred, the Zionist Organization pressed to obtain international support for its aims by securing approval from the League of Nations. Weizmann writes that his advisers:
"... fought the battle of the Mandate for many months. Draft after draft was proposed, discussed and rejected, and I sometimes wondered if we should ever reach a final text. The most serious difficulty arose in connection with a paragraph in the Preamble - the phrase which now reads: 'Recognizing the historic rights of the Jews to Palestine'. But Curzon would have none of it, remarking dryly: 'If you word it like that, I can see Weizmann coming to me every other day and saying he has a right to do this, that, or the other in Palestine! I won't have it!' As a compromise, Balfour suggested 'historial connection', and 'historical connection' it was." 56/

The wording of the Mandate was the object of strong opinions within the British Government, with Curzon strongly resisting formulations that would imply recognition of any legal rights for the Zionist movement in Palestine. Excerpts from official memoranda are informative:

On a draft to the effect that the British Government would be:
"responsible for placing Palestine under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of a Jewish national home and the development of a self-governing Commonwealth ..."
Curzon commented:
"... development of a self-governing Commonwealth'. Surely most dangerous. It is an euphemism for a Jewish State, the very thing they accepted and that we disallow;...

"The Zionists are after a Jewish State with the Arabs as hewers of wood and drawers of water.

"So are many British sympathisers with the Zionists.

"Whether you use the word Commonwealth or State that is what it will be taken to mean.

"That is not my view. I want the Arabs to have a chance and I don't want a Hebrew State.

"I have no idea how far the case has been given away to the Zionists. If not I would prefer 'self-governing institutions'. I have never been consulted as to this Mandate at an earlier stage, nor do I know from what negotiations it springs or on what undertakings it is based ... I think the entire concept wrong.

"Here is a country with 580,000 Arabs and 30,000 or is it 60,000 Jews (by no means all Zionists). Acting upon the noble principles of self-determination and ending with a splendid appeal to the League of Nations, we then proceed to draw up a document which ... is an avowed constitution for a Jewish State. Even the poor Arabs are only allowed to look through the keyhole as a non-Jewish community." 57/

The Zionist Organization was being consulted in the drafting of the Mandate although Curzon disapproved:
"I told Dr. Weizmann that I could not admit the phrase (historical connection) in the preamble ... It is certain to be made the basis of all sorts of claims in the future. I do not myself recognize that the connection of the Jews with Palestine, which terminated 1,200 years ago, gives them any claim whatsoever ... I would omit the phrase. I greatly dislike giving the draft to the Zionists, but in view of the indiscretions already committed, I suppose that this is inevitable ..." 58/

Balfour, by then Lord President of the Council, continued to help Weizmann. In a memorandum on the Mandate for the British Cabinet, Curzon wrote:
"... this Mandate ... has passed through several revisions. When it was first shown to the French Government it at once excited their vehement criticism on the ground of its almost exclusively Zionist complexion and of the manner in which the interests and rights of the Arab majority ... were ignored. The Italian Government expressed similar apprehensions ... The Mandate, therefore, was largely rewritten, and finally received their assent;...

"In the course of these discussions strong objection was taken to a statement which had been inserted in the Preamble of the first draft to the following effect:

'Recognizing the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and the claim which this gives them to reconstitute Palestine as their national home.'

"It was pointed out (1) that, while the Powers had unquestionably recognized the historical connection of the Jews with Palestine by their formal acceptance of the Balfour Declaration and their textual incorporation of it in the Turkish Peace Treaty drafted at San Remo, this was far from constituting anything in the nature of a legal claim, and that the use of such words might be, and was, indeed, certain to be used as the basis of all sorts of political claims by the Zionists for the control of Palestinian administration in the future, and (2) that, while Mr. Balfour's Declaration had provided for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, this was not the same thing as the reconstitution of Palestine as a Jewish national home - an extension of the phrase for which there was no justification, and which was certain to be employed in the future as the basis for claims of the character to which I have referred.

"On the other hand, the Zionists pleaded for the insertion of some such phrase in the preamble, on the ground that it would make all the difference to the money that they aspired to raise in foreign countries for the development of Palestine.

"Mr. Balfour, who interested himself keenly in their case, admitted, however, the force of the above contentions and, on the eve of leaving for Geneva, suggested an alternative form of words which I am prepared to recommend." 59/

When the question of the British Mandate over Palestine was discussed in Parliament, it became clear that opinion in the House of Lords was strongly opposed to the Balfour policy, as illustrated by the words of Lord Sydenham in reply to Lord Balfour:
"... the harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country - Arab all around in the hinterland - may never be remedied ... what we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend." 60/
The House of Lords voted to repeal the Balfour Declaration, but a similar motion was defeated in the House of Commons and the British Government formally accepted the Mandate.

The Zionist Organization however, succeeded in having its formulation concerning "historical connection" and "reconstitution" of the "national home" included in the final text of the Mandate (annex V) which was approved by the League of Nations on 24 July 1922, and came into formal effect in September 1923 when the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey came into force. It thus gave international sanction - which then meant the sanction of the victorious Allied Powers - to the Balfour Declaration, and determined the direction of developments in Palestine. The important clauses of the Mandate read:
"Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on 2 November, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country; and

"Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;

"Article 1: The Mandatory shall have full powers of legislation and of administration, save as they may be limited by the terms of this Mandate.

"Article 2: The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.

"Article 4: An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, subject always to the control of the Administration, to assist and take part in the development of the country.

"The Zionist Organization, so long as its organization and constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall be recognized as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the co-operation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home.

"Article 6: The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes."

The Mandate provided for no body to serve the interests of the Palestinian people, similar to the Jewish Agency given official status. Nor were the Palestinians ever consulted in the choice of the mandatory, as required by article 22 of the Covenant. The only move towards consultation had been the American King-Crane Commission, whose views were ignored. The United States, however, had become associated with the Balfour Declaration's policy through a joint Congressional resolution incorporating the Declaration's language. 61/ Three years later the Anglo-American Convention of 1925 formalized United States' consent to the implementation of a Mandate 61/ embedded with conflicting obligations, and in which the inherent political rights of the Palestinian people had been overridden.

The borders of Palestine

Zionist ambitions for the national home had sought considerably more territory, extending into Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, and Egypt, than was actually assigned to the Mandatory Power. The Zionist Organization's initial proposal asked that the Jewish national home be established within the following borders:
"... In the north, the northern and southern banks of the Litany River, as far north as latitude 33° 45'. Thence in a south-easterly direction to a point just south of the Damascus territory and close and west of the Hedjaz Railway.

"In the east, a line close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway.

"In the south, a line from a point in the neighbourhood of Akaba to El Arish.

"In the west, the Mediterranean Sea.

"The details of the delimitation should be decided by a Boundary Commission, one of the members of which should be a representative of the Jewish Council for Palestine hereinafter mentioned.

"There should be a right of free access to and from the Red Sea, through Akaba, by arrangement with the Arab Government ..."
The map covered by these proposed frontiers is shown in the map at annex VI.

These Zionist claims were not admitted, and the borders of Palestine enclosed a far more restricted area (also shown in the map) within which Great Britain exercised its mandate.

The question of the validity of the Mandate

It is clear that by failing to consult the Palestinian people in the decision on the future of their country, the victorious Powers ignored not only the principle of self-determination that they themselves had endorsed, but also the provisions of Article 22 of the League's Covenant.

Even during the mandate, the Palestinians protested against this denial of their fundamental rights. The report of the Royal Commission (of 1937) records these protests:
"... though the Mandate was ostensibly based on Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, its positive injunctions were not directed to the 'well-being and development' of the existing Arab population but to the promotion of Jewish interests. Complete power over the legislation as well as administration was delegated to the Mandatory, who undertook to place the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as would secure the establishment of the Jewish national home ...

"... One member of the Arab Higher Committee dealt more closely with the legal argument. He remarked that the terms of the Mandate are inconsistent with the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Paragraph 4 of that Article recognizes the existence of two juristic persons - one the community which should govern independently and the other the foreigner who is to assist and advise until the former is able to stand alone. But in Palestine there is one person who governs and who assists himself. Your Majesty is the Mandatory and Your Majesty's Government and their nominees are the Government of Palestine and, while the Preamble speaks of a Mandate, article 1 denies the existence of a Mandate in the proper sense by conferring upon what is called 'the Mandatory' full powers of legislation and administration. The community which is to be provisionally recognized as independent has no existence ..." 62/

From among the several authorities of international law who have questioned the validity of the Mandate, the views of Professor Henry Cattan may be quoted:
"The Palestine Mandate was invalid on three grounds set out hereinafter.

"1. The first ground of invalidity of the Mandate is that by endorsing the Balfour Declaration and accepting the concept of the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine it violated the sovereignty of the people of Palestine and their natural rights of independence and self-determination. Palestine was the national home of the Palestinians from time immemorial. The establishment of a national home for an alien people in that country was a violation of the legitimate and fundamental rights of the inhabitants. The League of Nations did not possess the power, any more than the British Government did, to dispose of Palestine, or to grant to the Jews any political or territorial rights in that country. In so far as the Mandate purported to recognize any rights for alien Jews in Palestine, it was null and void.

"2. The second ground of invalidity of the Mandate is that it violated, in spirit and in letter, Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, under the authority of which it purported to be made. The Mandate violated Article 22 in three respects:

"(a) The Covenant had envisaged the Mandate as the best method of achieving its basic objective of ensuring the well-being and development of the peoples inhabiting the Mandated Territories.

"Was the Palestine Mandate conceived for the well-being and development of the inhabitants of Palestine? The answer is found in the provisions of the Mandate itself. The Mandate sought the establishment in Palestine of a national home for another people, contrary to the rights and wishes of the Palestinians ... It required the Mandatory to place the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as would secure the establishment of a Jewish national home. It required the Mandatory to facilitate Jewish immigration into Palestine. It provided that a foreign body known as the Zionist Organization should be recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine in matters affecting the establishment of the Jewish national home. It is clear that, although the Mandates System was conceived in the interest of the inhabitants of the Mandated Territory, the Palestine Mandate was conceived in the interest of an alien people originating from outside Palestine, and ran counter to the basic concept of mandates. As Lord Islington observed when he opposed the inclusion of the Balfour Declaration in the Palestine Mandate: "The Palestine Mandate is a real distortion of the mandatory system". The same distinguished Lord added:

"When one sees in Article 22 ... that the well-being and development of such peoples should form a sacred trust of civilization, and when one takes that as the note of the mandatory system, I think your Lordships will see that we are straying down a very far path when we are postponing self-government in Palestine until such time as the population is flooded with an alien race."

"(b) The Palestine Mandate also ran counter to the specific concept of mandates envisaged by Article 22 for countries detached from Turkey at the end of the First World War. In the case of those countries, the intention was to limit the Mandate to the rendering of temporary advice and assistance. It is doubtful whether the people of Palestine, as also other Arab peoples detached from Turkey, were in need of administrative advice and assistance from a Mandatory. Their level of culture was not inferior to that existing at the time in many of the nations that were Members of the League of Nations. Such Arab communities had actively participated with the Turks in the government of their country. Their political maturity and administrative experience were comparable to the political maturity and administrative experience of the Turks, who were left to stand alone.

"Be that as it may, the framers of the Palestine Mandate did not restrict the Mandatory's role to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance, but granted the Mandatory 'full powers of legislation and administration' (Article 1). Such 'full powers of legislation and administration' were not laid down in the interest of the inhabitants, but were intended to be used, and in fact were used, to establish by force the Jewish national home in Palestine. Clearly this was an abuse of the purpose of the Mandate under the Covenant and a perversion of its raison d'être.

"The whole concept of the Palestine Mandate stands in marked contrast to the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon which was given to France on 24 July 1922. This Mandate conformed to Article 22 of the Covenant ...

"... The third ground of invalidity of the Mandate lies in the fact that its endorsement and implementation of the Balfour Declaration conflicted with the assurances and pledges given to the Arabs during the First World War by Great Britain and the Allied Powers. The denial to the Palestine Arabs of their independence and the subjection of their country to the immigration of a foreign people were a breach of those pledges." 63/
At the time that the Mandate was established, however, the people of Palestine were unable to question or to challenge it, and the process of establishing the "Jewish national home" commenced.

V. MANDATED PALESTINE: THE "JEWISH NATIONAL HOME"

The course of the Mandate

While the Mandate in principle required the development of self-governing institutions, its preamble and operative articles left no doubt that the principal thrust would be the implementation of the Balfour Declaration and the establishment of the "Jewish national home". British policy in Palestine during the period of the Mandate was directed to this end but, on facing strengthening Palestinian resistance, from time to time was adjusted to the force of circumstance. The basic policy was elaborated in 1922 (in the "Churchill Memorandum") and a pattern developed, by which an outburst of violent Palestinian resistance would be followed by an official inquiry Commission which would recommend modifications, but pressure from the Zionist Organization would veer official policy back to its main direction. This was the prevalent pattern in the 1920s but, as the Palestinian resistance strengthened, British policy was obliged to take into consideration the fact that the Palestinian people would not acquiesce in the alienation of their rights. By the end of the 1930s, Palestine became the scene of full-scale violence as the Palestinians rebelled for independence, the Zionists retaliated to hold the ground they had gained, and the British Government strove to control a situation, created by the Mandate, which was fast sliding into war.

The start of the Mandate

The British Mandate acquired jurisdiction de jure over Palestine in September 1923 following conclusion with Turkey of the Treaty of Lausanne. Before this, the de facto administration was first in the form of a military government from December 1917 to June 1920, with a civilian High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, taking office on 1 July 1920. In March 1921, ministerial responsibility for Palestine (along with other Mandated Territories), was transferred from the Foreign Office to the Colonial Office under Sir Winston Churchill.

The Balfour Declaration was first officially made public in Palestine only in 1920 after the installation of the civilian administration, having been kept officially confidential until then to minimize the chances of disorder caused by the protests that were anticipated from the Palestinians. Of course, the nature and object of the Declaration and the policy it sought to introduce had quickly become common knowledge. It had led quickly to violent conflict in Palestine. In London, a delegation from the Moslem-Christian Association of Palestine tried in 1921 and 1922 to present the Palestinian case to counter the sustained influence of the Zionist Organization on British authorities in both London and Jerusalem.

The "Churchill Memorandum"

The British Government moved to elaborate its policy in a statement (referred to as the "Churchill Memorandum") of 1 July 1922:

This statement disclaimed any intent to create "a wholly Jewish Palestine" or to effect "the subordination of the Arab population, language or culture in Palestine". But, at the same time, the statement, to assuage the Jewish community, made it clear that:
"... The Balfour Declaration, reaffirmed by the Conference of the Principal Allied Powers at San Remo and again in the Treaty of Sèvres, is not susceptible of change ... in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance. That is the reason why it is necessary that the existence of a Jewish national home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection ...

"For the fulfilment of this policy it is necessary that the Jewish community in Palestine should be able to increase its numbers by immigration. This immigration cannot be so great in volume as to exceed whatever may be the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals". 64/

The "Churchill Memorandum" thus reaffirmed the Balfour Declaration, and the "historic connection" of the Jews with Palestine, asserting their presence was "as of right and not as sufferance". Immigration was to be subject only to the economic absorptive capacity of Palestine. Despite the assurances to the Palestinians, there was no doubt left that the principal object of the Churchill policy was to establish the "Jewish national home".
That indeed this was the intention was reiterated by Churchill several years afterwards, when he said that the intention of the 1922 White Paper was "to make it clear that the establishment of self-governing institutions in Palestine was to be subordinated to the paramount pledge and obligation of establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine". 65/ Faced with this determined effort concerted between a Great Power and a Jewish organization that had demonstrated its strength and influence, the Palestinian people refused to acquiesce in the scheme. They refused to join in the Churchill plan of setting up a legislative council to further these schemes, and they protested against the policy that strengthened the drive towards a Jewish "national home" in Palestine despite the strong opposition of the Palestinians, who declared:
"... We wish to point out here that the Jewish population of Palestine who lived there before the War never had any trouble with their Arab neighbours. They enjoyed the same rights and privileges as their fellow Ottoman citizens, and never agitated for the Declaration of November 1917. It is the Zionists outside Palestine who worked for the Balfour Declaration ...

"We therefore here once again repeat that nothing will safeguard Arab interests in Palestine but the immediate creation of a national government which shall be responsible to a Parliament of all whose members are elected by the people of the country - Moslems, Christians and Jews ...

"... [Otherwise] we see division and tension between Arabs and Zionists increasing day by day and resulting in general retrogression. Because the immigrants dumped upon the country from different parts of the world are ignorant of the language, customs and character of the Arabs, and enter Palestine by the might of England against the will of the people who are convinced that these have come to strangle them. Nature does not allow the question of a spirit of co-operation between two peoples so different, and it is not to be expected that the Arabs would bow to such a great injustice, or that the Zionists would so easily succeed in realizing their dreams ..." 66/

The "Churchill policy" secured the road for the Zionist Organization towards its goal of a Jewish State in Palestine made possible by the Balfour Declaration.

Two of the principal means advocated by the Zionist Organization for achieving the national home were large-scale immigration and land purchase. A third was the denial of employment to Palestinian labour.

The King-Crane Commission had reported that Jewish colonists were planning a radical transformation of Palestine:

"The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conference with Jewish representatives, that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase". 67/
Large scale immigration had started under the aegis of the Balfour Declaration soon after the war ended, and had already led to violent opposition by Palestinians in 1920 and 1921. With the endorsement of the Churchill policy, immigration accelerated, reaching a peak in 1924-1926, but soon sharply declined. At this point, Weizmann records:

"The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was built on air ... every day and every hour of these last 10 years, when opening the newspapers, I thought: Whence will the next blow come? I trembled lest the British Government would call me and ask: 'Tell us, what is this Zionist Organization? Where are they, your Zionists?' ... The Jews, they knew, were against us; we stood alone on a little island, a tiny group of Jews with a foreign past."
The table below shows immigration figures during the 1920s.

Immigration into Palestine, 1920-1929 ⁶⁸/

Recorded immigration

YEAR JEWS NON-JEWS

1920 (September-October) 5,514 202

1921 9,149 190

1922 7,844 284

1923 7,421 570

1924 12,858 697

1925 33,801 840

1926 13,081 829

1927 2,713 882

1928 2,178 908

1929 5,429 1,317

Thus during the decade about 100,000 Jewish immigrants entered Palestine, far short of the numbers envisaged by the Zionist Organization, but substantial enough to make a marked impact in a country where the total population in 1922 was officially estimated at about 750,000. 69/ In absolute terms the Jewish population more than doubled, and in percentage terms rose from below 10 per cent to over 17 per cent during this period.

Immigration was virtually under the control of Zionist organizations, as described in the report of an official Commission:

"... We were informed by the Chief Immigration Officer that in the allocation to individuals of the certificates which are supplied in blank to the General Federation of Jewish Labour, it is the practice of that body to have regard to the political creed of the several possible immigrants rather than to their particular qualifications for admission to Palestine. It is clearly the duty of the responsible Jewish authorities to select for admission to Palestine those of the prospective immigrants who are best qualified on personal grounds to assist in the establishment of a Jewish national home in that country: that political creed should be a deciding factor in the choice between applicants is open to the strongest exception". 70/

Similarly, a number of Jewish organizations such as the Colonisation Department of the Zionist Organization, financed by the Keren ha-Yesod, were actively engaged in acquisition of land both for individual immigrant families as well as for the Yishuv or Jewish settlements. Several of these organizations had been operating since the nineteenth century, notably the Palestine Jewish Colonisation Association (PICA)*. With the British occupation of Palestine in 1918 all land transactions were suspended. The registers were reopened in 1920, at which time it was estimated that Jewish land acquisitions stood at about 650,000 dunums** or 2.5 per cent of the total land area of 26 million dunums). 71/ By the end of the decade this figure had nearly doubled to 1,200,000 dunums, just below 5 per cent. 72/

______________

* PICA was the Palestinian section of ICA (Jewish Colonisation Association) led by Baron Maurice de Hirsch. The aim of ICA was to support Jewish emigration from Europe and Asia to other parts of the world; to create agricultural settlements in North and South America; and to obtain authorization and autonomy for these settlements.

** 1 dunum = approx. 1,000 sq. metres or 1/4 acre (1 sq. mile = approx. 2,560 dunums).

A strict policy of what in today's terms would be described as racial discrimination was maintained by the Zionist Organization in this rapid advance towards the "national home". Only Jewish labour could service Jewish farms and settlements. The eventual outcome of this trend was a major outbreak of violence with unprecedented loss of life in 1929, which was investigated by the Shaw Commission. Another commission headed by Sir John Hope Simpson followed to investigate questions of immigration and land transfers. Certain observations of the Hope Simpson Commission are of interest, particularly on labour and employment policies.

The Commission went into great detail in its report, dividing Palestine into areas according to cultivability, and estimating total cultivable land at about 6.5 million dunums of which about a sixth was in Jewish hands. 73/

The report described in some detail the employment policies of the Zionist agencies quoting some of their provisions:

"The effect of the Jewish colonization in Palestine on the existing population is very intimately affected by the conditions on which the various Jewish bodies hold, sell and lease their land.

"The Constitution of the Jewish Agency: Land Holding and Employment Clauses ...

"(d) Land is to be acquired as Jewish property and ... the same shall be held as the inalienable property of the Jewish people.

"(e) The Agency shall promote agricultural colonization based on Jewish labour ... it shall be deemed to be a matter of principle that Jewish labour shall be employed ..."

"Keren Kayemet draft lease: Employment of Jewish labour only

"... The lessee undertakes to execute all works connected with the cultivation of the holding only with Jewish labour. Failure to comply with this duty by the employment of non-Jewish labour shall render the lessee liable to the payment of compensation ..."

"The lease also provides that the holding shall never be held by any but a Jew ..."

"Keren ha-Yesod agreements: Employment of labour
The following provisions are included:

'Article 7 - The settler hereby undertakes that ... if and whenever he may be obliged to hire help, he will hire Jewish workmen only.'"In the similar agreement for the Emek colonies, there is a provision as follows:'Article 11 - The settler undertakes ... not to hire any outside labour except Jewish labourers.'" 74/

Commenting on the Zionist attitude towards the Palestinians, the report noted the Zionist policy of allaying Arab suspicions:

"Zionist policy in regard to Arabs in their colonies. The above-quoted provisions sufficiently illustrate the Zionist policy with regard to the Arabs in their colonies. Attempts are constantly being made to establish the advantage which Jewish settlement has brought to the Arab. The most lofty sentiments are ventilated at public meetings and in Zionist propaganda. At the time of the Zionist Congress in 1931 a resolution was passed which 'solemnly declared the desire of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people, to develop the homeland common to both into a prosperous community which would ensure the growth of the peoples'. This resolution is frequently quoted in proof of the excellent sentiments which zionism cherishes towards the people of Palestine. The provisions quoted above, which are included in legal documents binding on every settler in a Zionist colony, are not compatible with the sentiments publicly expressed." 75/

At the same time, the Commission, rejecting Zionist arguments in support of their discriminatory policies, considered that they violated the Mandate:

"Policy contrary to article 6 of Mandate ... The principle of the persistent and deliberate boycott of Arab labour in the Zionist colonies is not only contrary to the provisions of that article of the Mandate, but it is in addition a constant and increasing source of danger to the country." 76/

The report noted in the strongest terms the effect on indigenous Palestinians of Zionist policies.

"The effect of the Zionist colonization policy on the Arab. Actually the result of the purchase of land in Palestine by the Jewish National Fund has been that land has been extraterritorialized. It ceases to be land from which the Arab can gain any advantage either now or at any time in the future. Not only can he never hope to lease or to cultivate it, but, by the stringent provisions of the lease of the Jewish National Fund, he is deprived for ever from employment on that land. Nor can anyone help him by purchasing the land and restoring it to common use. The land is in mortmain and inalienable. It is for this reason that Arabs discount the professions of friendship and goodwill on the part of the Zionists in view of the policy which the Zionist Organization deliberately adopted." 75/"Land available for settlement. It has emerged quite definitely that there is at the present time and with the present methods of Arab cultivation no margin of land available for agricultural settlement by new immigrants with the exception of such undeveloped land as the various Jewish agencies hold in reserve." 77/

These developments in Palestine at the end of the 1920s - the 1929 Palestinian revolt and the reports of the Shaw and Hope Simpson Commissions - heightened awareness of the dangerous situation in Palestine as the Zionist drive towards a Jewish State met increasing Palestinian opposition. While reinforcing its military strength in Palestine, Great Britain issued a new statement of policy, called the Passfield White Paper of October 1930, in an effort to control the pressures that were building.* While criticizing both Jewish leaders for exerting pressure to obtain official compliance with Zionist wishes in matters of immigration and land transfers, and Palestinians for demanding self-determination which "... would render it impossible;... to carry out, in the fullest sense, the double undertaking", 78/ the 1930 policy, attempted to introduce an important change in emphasis from the Churchill paper which gave first priority to establishing the Jewish State. The Passfield paper commented:

______________

* Named after the then Colonial Secretary Lord Passfield.

"... attempts have been made to argue, in support of Zionist claims, that the principal feature of the Mandate is the passages regarding the Jewish national home, and that the passages designed to safeguard the rights of the non-Jewish community are merely secondary considerations qualifying, to some extent, what is claimed to be the primary object for which the Mandate has been framed ...

"It is a difficult and delicate task of His Majesty's Government to devise means whereby, in the execution of its policy in Palestine, equal weight shall at all times be given to the obligations laid down with regard to the two sections of the population and to reconcile those two obligations where, inevitably, conflicting interests are involved". 79/

The paper announced a renewed attempt to establish a legislative council. Further it gave notice of intent to reassert authority over the vital issues of immigration and land transfers, which had been dominated by the Jewish Agency, working heavily against Palestinian interests. 80/ Reflecting awareness of the intensifying conflict the paper concludes with a suggestion of realization that Palestinian grievances had justification, but were faced with inimical circumstance:

"To the Arabs His Majesty's Government would appeal for a recognition of the facts of the situation, and for a sustained effort at co-operation in obtaining that prosperity for the country as a whole by which all will benefit. From the Jewish leaders, His Majesty's Government ask a recognition of the necessity for making some concessions on their side in regard to the independent and separatist ideals which have been developed in some quarters in connection with the Jewish national home ..." 81/

The Passfield White Paper drew strong criticism from the Zionist Organization and its supporters, and soon was virtually negated by a letter written in 1931 by the British Prime Minister to Dr. Weizmann, again giving paramountcy to the goals of Zionism rather than "equal weight" to the rights of the people of Palestine. Stating that the letter was meant "to meet certain criticisms put forward by the Jewish Agency", the letter reasserted that "the undertaking of the Mandate is an undertaking to the Jewish people and not only to the Jewish population of Palestine". 82/

The "MacDonald letter" made clear that Palestine would be governed in accordance with the Churchill policy of 1922, and that the restrictions suggested by Lord Passfield on Jewish immigration and land transfers would not be applied.

Dr. Weizmann's words on these developments are of interest:
"... The Passfield White Paper may be regarded as the most concerted effort - until the White Paper of 1939 - on the part of a British Government to retract the promise made to the Jewish people in the Balfour Declaration. That attack, too, was successfully repulsed.

"... On February 13, 1931, there was an official reversal of policy. It did not take the form of a retraction of the White Paper - that would have meant a loss of face - but of a letter addressed to me by the Prime Minister, read in the House of Commons and printed in Hansard. I considered that the letter rectified the situation - the form was unimportant - and I so indicated to the Prime Minister.

"I was to be bitterly attacked in the Zionist Congress of that year for accepting a letter in place of another White Paper. But whether I was right or not in my acceptance may be judged by a simple fact: it was under MacDonald's letter to me that the change came about in the Government's attitude, and in the attitude of the Palestine administration, which enabled us to make the magnificent gains of the ensuing years. It was under MacDonald's letter that Jewish immigration into Palestine was permitted to reach figures like 40,000 for 1934 and 62,000 for 1935, figures undreamed of in 1930". 83/

This sudden reversal of British policy, coming as it did after Palestinian hopes for fair play had been raised by the Passfield White Paper, did little to improve the deteriorating situation in Palestine.

The start of the notorious Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe brought repercussions to Palestine which were to exacerbate the mounting tensions. While the majority of European Jews fleeing the Nazi terror chose the United States and Britain, large numbers sought refuge in Palestine. Immigration thus sharply increased, as shown by the following figures:

Jewish Immigration into Palestine 1930-1939 ^84/

YEAR

1930 4,944

1931 4,075

1932 9,553

1933 30,327

1934 42,359

1935 61,854

1936 29,727

1937 10,536

1938 12,868

1939 16,405

Compared to the 100,000 in the 1920s, Palestine received about 232,000 legal immigrants in the 1930s. The Jewish population in 1939 numbered over 445,000 out of a total of about 1,500,000 - nearly 30 per cent compared to the less than 10 per cent 20 years before. Similarly, by the end of 1939, Jewish holdings of land had risen to almost 1.5 million dunums compared to the 650,000, of the total area of 26 million dunums, held at the start of the Mandate.

Between 1930 and 1936, the British Administration tried to initiate measures, such as the establishment of elected municipal councils, and later, a legislative council (with a large majority of appointed members) in an attempt to reduce political friction. These measures were ineffective. The drive of political zionism to establish a settler State in Palestine was met by violent resistance from the Palestinians, and this situation simmered until it boiled over in 1936.

PS: ZIONIST JEWS..SORRY NO PLACES FOR ANIMAL LIKE YA !

The Good Jews : The True Torah Jews Against The Zionism

2013-05-03T15:01:00.003+08:00

Our Mission

The relatively new concept of Zionism began only about one hundred years ago and since that time Torah-true Jewry has steadfastly opposed the Zionist ideology. This struggle is rooted in two convictions:
1. Zionism, by advocating a political and military end to the Jewish exile, denies the very essence of our Diaspora existence. We are in exile by Divine Decree and may emerge from exile solely via Divine Redemption. All human efforts to alter a metaphysical reality are doomed to end in failure and bloodshed. History has clearly borne out this teaching.
2. Zionism has not only denied our fundamental belief in Heavenly Redemption it has also created a pseudo-Judaism which views the essence of our identity to be a secular nationalism. Accordingly, Zionism and the Israeli state have consistently endeavored, via persuasion and coercion, to replace a Divine and Torah-centered understanding of our peoplehood with an armed materialism.
True Torah Jews is dedicated to informing the world and in particular the American public and politicians that not all Jews support the ideology of the Zionist state called "Israel". In fact, a great number of Orthodox Jews view the ideology of that state as diametrically opposed to the teachings of traditional Judaism.
We are concerned that the widespread misconception that all Jews support the Zionist state and its actions endangers Jews worldwide.
We are NOT politically motivated. We are motivated by our concern for the peace and safety of all people throughout the world including those living in the Zionist state. We support and pray for peace for the people of the Zionist state but have no interest in and do not support the Zionist government.
We seek to disassociate Jews and traditional Judaism from the Zionist ideology by:
1. Providing historical and supporting documentation that Zionism is totally contrary to the teachings of traditional Judaism through the words of our Rabbis, Sages, and Holy Scriptures which oppose the creation of a state called Israel.
2. Providing historical documentation on the ideology and creation of Zionism, the supporters of Zionism and the negative impact of their actions on the Jewish people in the past hundred years, including their involvement in the Holocaust and their activities up to the present day.
3. Publicizing the efforts of traditional Jews to demonstrate their opposition to Zionism, efforts which are often ignored by the mainstream media.
4. Convincing the news media, politicians and the public to cease referring to the State of Israel as the "Jewish State" but to call it what it is: the "Zionist State".
We also aim to reach out to our Jewish brethren who have never studied the subject of Zionism from a Torah perspective, and have only been taught the Zionist side of the story. It is our hope that all of our fellow Jews will soon open their eyes, return to Torah and reject this ideology that replaces the Jew's age-old hope for G-d's redemption with a false redemption and a human-initiated state.

Date a Guy Who Climbs Mountains

2013-05-01T04:39:00.001+08:00

Lately I’ve been hanging out with mountaineer friends who have just been turned down by the women of their dreams (read: basted). Conversations were peppered with tales of heartbreak and extreme emo-ness. Of course, I had a grand time making fun of them because I’m brimming with empathy like that.
But on a serious note, I do feel for these guys who I know have good hearts and sincere intentions so I thought of writing this for them. I know this whole “Date a Girl/Guy Who…” format has been around for a while and may have already gone passé but, eh, who gives a damn.
To my favorite emo buddies, this one’s for you. Hearts are easy to break and girls are hard to get but life is still one hell of a fun ride. No matter what, we’ll still have mountains to climb and beaches to crash. We’ll have our sunsets and long bus rides and bottles of cold Mountain Dew. We shall laugh and drink and swap cheesy song lyrics. We shall live and have a kickass time. So here goes.
Date a guy who climbs mountains. Date a guy who hikes for hours to reach the highest peaks just for the heck of it. He’s the one with the muddy shoes, smelly backpack, worn-out hiking pants and a complexion that has survived the worst of sunburns.
Date a guy who feels right at home on a campsite, who thinks electricity and indoor plumbing are non-essentials. He can pitch a tent that’ll keep you warm and dry even amidst the pounding rain. He can fix up a kitchen with just a foldable stove, a canister of butane and two metal pots. He will serve you hot soup and well-cooked, fluffy rice and they’d be the best stuff you’ve ever tasted after a whole day of trekking.
Find a guy who has been to the summit. He will tell you tales of amazing things he has seen, of sights that took his breath away, and he will take you there so you can experience them for yourself.
He falls silent at the sight of a beautiful sunrise. He stands in awe at the stunning view of the valley below. He knows how to value beauty because he has braved forest trails and steep ascents just to see it.
Find a guy who has travelled to remote places in search of a challenging climb. He will not back down from an obstacle. He will look at adversity straight in the eye and say ‘give me the best you’ve got.’ He can keep his cool in the face of life’s problems because he already knows what it’s like to go through the crappiest of situations and survive.
Date a guy who is happiest on a mountain. Listen to his stories. Laugh at his jokes. You will never have a dull moment with him. When you’ve left behind the trappings of modern society and life has been stripped down to the basics, he will make you feel like nothing is missing and you have all you’ll ever need.
Date a guy who climbs mountains. Keep him. Don’t break his heart. He will treasure you and take you on his most outrageous adventures. He will drag you out of your comfort zone and keep your pulse racing. Say yes to a guy who climbs mountains. He will make you feel incredibly alive.
Girls, if you’ve been thoroughly convinced by this ultra-cheesy post and you now want to go out with super-awesome mountaineers, let me know. I will trade you their mobile numbers for a bucket of ice-cold beer. ‘Cause I’m nice like that.

MESSAGE FROM THE SULTANAH OF JOHORE ( posted on Xmas 2012 )

2013-04-29T00:02:00.000+08:00

MESSAGE FROM THE SULTANAH OF JOHORE Highly educated, from Oxford University. Open minded and full of logic and compassion. Her understanding of Islam, and respecting Christianity and other religions is an eye opener for those politicians who played the religious and racial cards to divide and rule.

RAJA ZARITH IDRIS (Sultanah of Johore)

Season of goodwill
MIND MATTER by RAJA ZARITH IDRIS (Sultanah of Johore)

If Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Isa (Jesus), a prophet respected and revered in Islam, is it so wrong to wish a blessed day for those who celebrate it?

DURING the days before Christmas last year, I wished my friends who were celebrating it "Merry Christmas" in much the same way they would wish me "Selamat Hari Raya" or "Happy Eid".

I find it rather sad that such a simple greeting – one which I grew up with and which I have never regarded as something that would compromise or de-value my own faith – is now regarded as something so religiously incorrect for us Malaysian Muslims.

When I was at boarding school in England , I had to go to church every Sunday because it was part of the rules. My father advised me to consider it as part of my "education" and he had no doubt that the experience would strengthen rather than weaken my own faith.

I was able to see the similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam. I learned more than the average Malaysian Muslim would about Christianity. I learnt that just as we Muslims categorise ourselves according to the four different schools of thoughts of the four Imams (Imam Malik, Imam Al Shafi, Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Ahmad Abn Hambal) and are either Sunnis or Shias, so Christians too are divided into different sects or churches.

Going to church did not make me less of a Muslim when I was a young girl, and neither does saying "Merry Christmas" make me less of a Muslim now. My faith has not been shaken just because I wished some friends a time of joy with their families. Neither will I suddenly suffer from amnesia and forget what my religion is.

What I do not wish to forget, however, is that there are good, kind people who are not of the same faith as me.

As Harun Yahya, the Turkish writer (he was selected last year as one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world by the Royal Isla mic Strategic Studies Centre of Jordan ) noted: "Islam is a religion of peace, love and tolerance".

Today, however, some circles have been presenting a false image of Islam, as if there were conflict between Islam and the adherents of the two other monotheistic religions. Yet Islam's view of Jews and Christians, who are named `the People of the Book' in the Quran, is very friendly and tolerant.

"This attitude towards the People of the Book developed during the years of the birth of Islam. At that time, Muslims were a minority, struggling to protect their faith and suffering oppression and torture from the pagans of the city of Mecca . Due to this persecution, some Muslims decided to flee Mecca and shelter in a safe country with a just ruler. The Prophet Muhammad told them to take refuge with King Negus, the Christian king of Ethiopia . The Muslims who followed this advice found a very fair administration that embraced them with love and respect when they went to Ethiopia . King Negus refused the demands of the pagan messengers who asked him to surrender the Muslims to them, and announced that Muslims could live freely in his country.

"Such attitudes of Christian people that are based on the concepts of compassion, mercy, modesty and justice, constitute a fact that God has pointed out in the Quran."

I do not wish to be a self-centred Muslim who expects friends of other faiths to wish me Selamat Hari Raya or, for those who are not Malaysians and therefore do not know about Hari Raya, a Happy Eid and yet do not return their goodwill when it is Christmas, Chinese New Year, Deepavali or Vesak Day.

Every year, friends who are Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs or those without any faith come to our home to celebrate Hari Raya with us. They do so with sincerity and as a mark of respect for one of the most important days in the Muslim calendar. Why should we not reciprocate their kindness, show them the same mark of respect for their religion and wish them the same joy on their holy days of celebration?

An Islamic scholar and lecturer also reminded me that as Muslims we must remember the importance of both the five Pillars of Islam and in the six Pillars of Iman (Faith), which are:Belief in Allah;

Belief in the angels;

Belief in the revealed Books (which include the Bible, the Torah and the Holy Quran);

Belief in the Prophets (May Peace be Upon Them);

Belief in the Resurrection and the events of Kiamah, the Day of Judgement; and

Belief in the predestination (Qada' and Qadar) by Allah in all things.

The prophets include not just Muhammad (May Peace Be Upon Him) as the last prophet and as the Messenger of Islam, but also in the 24 earlier ones who are mentioned in both the Bible and the Quran. Four of them are Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Daud (David), and Isa (Jesus).

So, if Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Isa (Jesus), a prophet respected and revered in Islam, is it so wrong to wish a blessed day for those who celebrate it?

We are now in the second decade of the 21st century. Surely, we should, now more than ever, be far more enlightened at a time when information of any sort and of all kinds are so readily available to us.

What is most important is that we regard one another as fellow citizens and treat each other with respect, regardless of our race or religion.
The writer is Royal Fellow, School of Language Studies and Linguistics, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), and holds a BA (Honours) degree in Chinese Studies, University of Oxford .

[The writer is also the current Sultanah of Johor]

Richard Branson hails top ‘Intrapreneurs’

2013-04-10T15:32:00.001+08:00

Ashoka have today revealed the first four people to win the inaugural League of Intrapreneurs, with top business minds from around the world – including Virgin’s Richard Branson – praising their efforts.

The important role played by social entrepreneurs in helping to meet development challenges in society is well documented, with some of the most successful going on to become household names or to win Nobel Prizes. But what about the unsung heroes inside established organisations?

These are people (of any seniority) whose contributions can amount to shifting development challenges up a CEO's agenda or bring the expertise of a multi-national to bear on identifying and solving a specific social problem: these are the Social Intrapreneurs and the focus of today’s awards lunch.

The awards, organised by Ashoka Changemakers, were announced from among hundreds of worthy nominees from around the world with the winners receiving pro bono consulting support from Accenture in order to take their ideas and action to the next level.

“Social intrapreneurs are demonstrating to the world how business can be a force for good,” commented the Virgin Group Founder, who has been a supporter of the initiative along with fellow business leaders such as Accenture’s Gib Bulloch: “People have got to be the change they want to see in their company (apologies Ghandi). But that takes vision and bravery. All of the finalists have these qualities and I only hope they inspire others in big organisations around the world to follow their example”

The winners list:

Aparecida Teixeira de Morais – Tribanco (Part of the Martins Group)

Graham Simpson – GSK

Sacha Carina van Ginhoven – TNT Express

Mandar Apte, Shell International

"The game is changing fast: Value now comes chiefly from contributing to change, not repetition,” explained Ashoka CEO Bill Drayton. “That means that the new measure of success for any organization is: "What percent of your people are intrapraneurs and how effective are you at enabling them to work together fluidly and openly?"

ps:until we meet again

The Art of Pitching ?

2013-03-28T16:26:00.000+08:00

One of the best things about hearing business pitches is that there is always a new idea and a new way of looking at things. I hear a huge number of pitches in a wide variety of places – we even had a pitching session while cycling in South Africa recently. But the most impressive pitches all have a few things in common. Here are five simple similarities shared by all successful pitches:

- They explain how the new business will make a difference to customers and provide a compelling alternative to competitors. This means showing a new way of doing things to shake up the market, and explaining it in short, sharp, entertaining fashion.

- They are grounded in expert knowledge of the industry. If you are going to launch anything - a new social network, a new bank, a new fashion line – you need to demonstrate a solid understanding of the market and how you can disrupt it.

- They have a realistic plan. While high concepts are fine, pitches need to illustrate how a company could work practically. This means legal, financial and operational plans. It’s tough to include details in a short presentation, but the most engaging pitches manage to combine passion with pragmatism.

- They are in it for the long haul. Nothing stays the same, and business changes faster than most things. Pitches latching on to the flavour of the month are all well and good, but they need to communicate how the business could grow sustainably and develop in the future.

- They show their strongest hand. Pitching is all about selling your idea and your business as an exciting place to be. Highlight the strengths – especially the talented people who are working on the project – and don’t be afraid to talk up your prospects.

Virgin Media Pioneers have announced the return of our ‘Pitch to Rich’ competition, giving entrepreneurs from around the UK the chance to pitch their ideas to me and win a start-up investment.

The winning company will get a grand prize worth £5,000 including investment and mentoring plus legal, branding and marketing advice for their business. Runners up will also receive £1,000 worth of investment as well as an opportunity to build their network and raise their profile.

What do you think are the most important things to remember in the art of pitching?

Gitmo prisoner: ‘We all died when Obama indefinitely detained us’

2013-03-27T14:09:00.003+08:00

The situation is getting desperate in Guantanamo with many of the hunger striking inmates prepared to die, federal public defender Carlos Warner told RT, stressing that his client is calling on the Obama administration to either ‘respect or kill’ them.

RT: When did you last speak to your client and how bad did he say the situation was there?
Carlos Warner: Actually, I have late breaking news from the island. It came in just a few minutes ago from Colonel Wingard. If you are interested I have a statement from Faiz al-Kandari.

RT: What did he say?

CW: Are you interested?

RT: Very much so.

CW: He said:

“I scare myself when I look in the mirror. Let them kill us as we have nothing to lose. We died when Obama indefinitely detained us. Respect us or kill us. It is your choice. The US must take off its mask and kill us.”

That was his statement as of today. I saw him last week. I have many clients there but I did see him last week and it was a shock to see what I saw. He was a man who was down more than 30 pounds less than a month ago. He refused all nourishment. His cheeks were sunk in. He was exhausted, weak, he could not stand. It was a scary, scary meeting for me.

RT: And his message is respect us or kill us. Will his wish come true or will he now be prepared to die?

CW: Well, I think many of the men, the ones that are indefinitely detained have zero hope. They have no hope because of the administration. I think many of them are ready die. The question is how and when will they die? They have no hope of being released from that place and unless a human being has some hope, it is very difficult to live. And many of them are prepared to die.

RT: Has this man been cleared for release years ago, and if so why hasn’t he been released?

CW: Faiz is not on the list of 86 innocent men who are cleared for release and those 86 men, it was unanimous decision by the US government, our government to release them. But Faiz is not on that list. But let’s be clear, everyone in Guantanamo is indefinitely detained. No one is being released - cleared for release or not.

RT: Why not? Clearly the US must have justified legal reason for keeping these people locked up?

CW: Yes. The reason is very simple and it is at the foot of President Obama. Now you’re talking to a federal defender. What that means, I come from the far left. I’m a liberal and I believe in President Obama and I’ve voted for him twice. But this is a broken promise, one he has chosen not to abide by. He looks at the republicans in congress and says it is their fault. Well, as of today, there isn’t one person in the administration I can contact to address these problems. There is nobody in the entire Obama administration I call and say, let’s stop the hunger strike. I’m forced to do that at the base with young officers.

RT: If people do start to die, do you think there will be more attention from the mainstream media?

CW: These are men. They are not animals. These are people that we have grown to know and respect and I do not want to see any of them die. I don’t want to see them die over this or any other protest. They should get processed. They are at the end of their rope. When people die, if the strike has not ended, then sure there is going to be more attention. But let me tell you, as a human being I do not want to see my clients die and the fact that they are in this condition is one of the most heart-wrenching things I have had to experience as a lawyer.

RT: Will their desperate actions achieve anything?
CW: It is up to the world. The military is telling them to look away from Guantanamo, everything is fine, nobody is striking, there is only 10-15-20, and now I heard it’s over 30 today. The only way this changes is if the world pressures United States, internally as well. We need the citizens of the United States to stand up and demand that the president Obama follow through with his promise. And his promise is to close the Guantanamo. He made that broken promise and as you can hear from the mouth of Faiz, it is killing people in Guantanamo now.
Follow RT's in-depth timeline on Guantanamo hunger strike.

"KAMI BUKAN PENDATANG WAHAI LIM KIT SIANG!" - ORANG MELAYU

2013-03-27T13:06:00.004+08:00

AMARAN: ARTIKEL INI DITUJUKAN UNTUK LIM KIT SIANG, bukan semua bangsa cina.

Seperti mana yang kita semua maklum, kebencian DAP pada MELAYU bukanlah satu rahsia lagi bagi kita yang celik akal dan berpandangan jauh. Segala tindak tanduk yang dipamerkan oleh DAP sentiasa mengundang syak wasangka kita. Kali ini, DAP cuba bermain api dengan orang MELAYU.

Kalau dibenci UMNO, saya masih tidak kisah. Tetapi, jangan membawa perasaan benci itu kepada menjadikan sejarah orang Melayu sebagai taruhan politik kotor kalian. Mungkin banyak orang Melayu di sana ditipu dan juga cina yang buta sejarah, tetapi tidak saya pendekar melayu yang sudah bersedia untuk membanting akal mendedahkan betapa BANGSATNYA CINA DAP.

Kepada rakan cina yang tidak sehaluan dengan DAP, saya berharap agar kalian membacanya dengan hati terbuka, sesungguhnya artikel ini bukanlah ditujukan untuk kalian kerana saya yakin kalian juga mahukan hidup yang aman tanpa ada pergaduhan kaum, tetapi dalang 13 Mei ini tidak serik-serik untuk belajar daripada kesilapan yang lepas terutama dajjal kecil yang bernama Lim Kit Siang.

Pertama kali, kalian semua kena bersihkan daripada minda kalian daripada fakta "bahawa kerajaan orang Melayu yang pertama ialah Melaka" kerana fakta itu sememangnya sangat-sangat salah. Sebelum berdirinya melaka, terdapat banyak kerajaan orang Melayu yang bertebaran di seluruh Asia Tenggara.

Sebagai contoh, kerajaan Funan dan Champa di Indochina. Chih Tu di Kelantan serta Langkasuka di utara semenanjung Malaysia serta tidak lupa juga empayar terhebat orang Melayu iaitu Srivijaya. Letakkan di minda anda bahawa kerajaan Orang Melayu bukan bermula di Melaka untuk mengelakkan anda daripada menjadi mangsa penipuan mereka yang berhasat dengki.

Kita mulakan artikel ini dengan saya berkongsi link di mana Lim Kit Siang dan John Doe (seorang penulis upahan DAP yang selalu menulis untuk laman portal pembangkang):

http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2011/01/20/malay-history-what’s-missing-from-the-textbooks/

Artikel tersebut diulas dalam english tetapi saya akan tulis ulasan saya di sini dalam bahasa Melayu bagi memudahkan pembacaan pihak kalian. Mereka DAP memulakan penipuan dengan berceloteh panjang lebar mengenai sejarah awal penubuhan kerajaan Islam Brunei.

Kemudian, si kiasu ini mula bermain jarumnya, mahu menyalahkan BTN dan juga UMNO kononnya mencipta sejarah. Mereka mengaitkan perkahwinan antara Sultan Muhammad Shah dan seorang puteri dari Johor-Temasik kemudian terus berkongsi fakta yang bagi saya sudah tidak relevan lagi kerana penemuan baru para sejarawan. Saya petik di bawah ini:

"Sultan Muhammad Shah married a Johorean-Temasik princess in 1363. Now, for all those products of Biro Tata Negara (BTN) out there, what year was Malacca formed? 1403. So, there was a Johor king already in 1363? Are you going to argue with Ketuanan Brunei on this? (By the way, he’s more Melayu than YOU!) The Johor ruler was under the Thais. The entire Peninsular belonged to the Thais! The ‘king’ of Singapore (Temasik), whom Parameswara of the Malaccan Sultanate murdered in cold blood was in fact the brother-in-Law of the ‘King’ of Pattani, who was under Ayodthaya rule."

Apa yang DAP cuba bermain dalam isu ini ialah mereka cuba mengatakan bahawa orang Melayu bukanlah orang asal di tanah Melayu ini kerana Sultan Brunei sudah berkahwin dengan seorang puteri misteri dari semenanjung kerana Melaka belum lagi berdiri.

Apa yang si bangsat ini tidak tahu ialah sebenarnya Melaka telah berdiri lama iaitu sejak 1262 Masihi. Kemudian dakwaan yang mengatakan bahawa Johor di bawah pemerintahan Siam ialah bullshit. Hanya berpandukan kisah Parameswara membunuh pemerintahan Temasik yang dilantik oleh siam.

Tahukah DAP dan John Doe siapakah siam yang dikatakan itu? Untuk pengetahuan kalian ialah Kerajaan Sri Dharmaja bukannya kerajaan Ayutthaya. Kerajaan Sri Dharmaraja ini ialah salah satu kerajaan orang Melayu yang memerintah di Segenting Kera sehingga ke Selatan Thai.

Kena pandai beza orang Siam dan Thai. Orang Siam ini merupakan salah satu daripada rumpun Melayu manakala orang Thai merupakan salah satu daripada rumpun cina yang lari dari negara China dan merupakan pendatang di Asia Tenggara berbanding pribumi Asia Tenggara yang lain seperti Melayu, Khmer dan Mon.

Kerajaan Ayutthaya didirikan pada tahun 1351 dan bagaimana dalam masa 12 tahun seluruh semenajung boleh jatuh ke dalam tangan mereka. Kerajaan ini mengambil masa untuk berdiri bahkan pada tahun 1777 baru mereka berjaya mengalahkan kerajaan Melayu Pattani di Selatan Thai dan bagaimana dia boleh mendakwa bahawa kerajaan Pattani boleh berada di bawah pengaruh Thai?

Cubaan mengatakan bahawa orang Thai ialah pemilik asal tanah Melayu ini tidak boleh dipakai sekadar dengan sentimen seperti itu. Kita mengembara lagi menghayati penipuan bangsat mereka.

Kali ini mereka menyentuh mengenai sebuah kerajaan orang Melayu yang hebat dan boleh dilabelkan sebagai lost kingdom seperti Tamadun Maya dan Aztec. Mereka sekadar berpandukan kepada hujah yang mengatakan bahawa kerajaan itu mengamalkan agama Buddha untuk melabelkan bahawa itu bukan milik orang Melayu.

Bullshit! Bila kalian tidak tahu apa itu sejarah, lebih baik diamkan diri dan jangan tunjuk pandai. Sebelum kedatangan agama Islam, orang Melayu merupakan pengganut agama Hindu dan Buddha. Namun, selepas hidayah ALLAH datang, orang Melayu merupakan bangsa terakhir yang memeluk Islam secara beramai-ramai.

Kerajaan Kota Gelanggi masih terakam kemas dalam Sulalatus Salatin sebagai sebuah kerajaan campuran Melayu-Mon yang saling bekerjasama melalui perkahwinan. Kemudian, kota ini diserang oleh Raja Chola yang datang dari Selatan India untuk menyerang kerajaan-kerajaan Melayu yang berada di bawah naungan Srivijaya.

Kemudian, anjing DAP ini membangkitkan sejarah seorang cina muslim yang mati di Brunei yang bernama Pu Kung Chih Mu. Tiada apa-apa yang salah mengenainya. Kita semua tahu bahawa orang Cina selalu berdagang ke kerajaan-kerajaan Melayu di Nusantara aka Kepulauan Melayu ini.

Saya tidak nampak ada apa yang salahnya bahawa Islam datang lebih awal ke Nusantara memandangkan bahawa Maharaja hebat empayar hebat nenek moyang kami pernah mengirimkan surat kepada kerajaan Islam untuk mengajarkan Islam kepada orang Melayu.

Apa dalam minda kau bahawa:

Islam=Melayu.
Buddha=Cina.
Hindu=Tamil.

Istilah bahawa Melayu itu mesti Islam hanya datang pada zaman moden apabila perlembagaan negara digubal. Sebelum itu, Melayu ialah Melayu. Agama mereka ada Islam, Hindu atau Buddha. Bawalah teori bahawa Islam datang ke Nusantara pada era mana pun tidak akan membuktikan bahawa orang Melayu itu pendatang.

Kemudian, bangsat kiasu ini berkongsi gambar Candi Borubudur sambil menolak dakwaan golongan anai-anai dan megat siam yang asyik bermain dengan teori tahap ultraman mereka. Itu membuatkan saya tersenyum sinis. Saya nak petik dakwaan daripada mereka yang BUTA SEJARAH tetapi cuba berlagak hebat.

"In fact, the entire peninsular Malaya had been Buddhist and/or Hindu ever since the second century when Lembah Bujang was built. And since this is the year 1363, all of Brunei and Borneo was also under the rule of King Hayam Wuruk, who was King of the Majapahit empire. And what religion did they have? (I’ll give you a hint… they built the Borobudor. And for those who claim that Borobudor is a mosque in disguise, please learn to recognize temple architecture.)"

Tak payah guna istilah in fact lah padahal fakta pun kau tak tahu. Apa yang cuba katakan? Tiada siapa yang menafikan bahawa agama Buddha dan Hindu merupakan anutan orang Melayu sebelum kedatangan Islam. Tetapi...

Borubudur di bina oleh Majapahit? Kawan-kawan, mari ketawakan mereka ini. KEBEBALAN SEJARAH SUDAH TAHAP DEWA, ada hati mahu menulis mengenai sejarah, terutama sejarah bangsa aku. Mari, aku ajarkan kalian mengenai sejarah bangsa.

Borubudur sebenarnya dibina oleh orang Melayu dari Empayar Srivijaya. Pada 775, candi borubudur ini di bina dan siap pada tahun 792 pada era pemerintahan Maharaja Samaratungga. Kalau hal sekecil ini pun tidak diketahui, janganlah berlagak seakan-alan sejarawan dan mahu menulis sejarah bohong mengenai bangsaku. Aku tidak rela!

Also important to note, that since this is 1363, Parameswara had not yet swum across Pirate-Bay to reach Temasik yet. Hence, the need to locate the earlier kingdoms which pre-date ‘His Royal Pendatangness’.

Siapa kau nak katakan nenek moyang aku pendatang? Hujah kau hanya kerana dia datang ke Melaka? Tahu tak bahawa Parameswara ini ialah putera Empayar Melayu Srivijaya? Apabila Srivijaya jatuh, Parameswara mencari tanah baru untuk menubuhkan kerajaan baru dan Melaka yang pada suatu masa dahulu pernah menjadi sebuah tanah di bawah jajahan dan pemerintahan bapanya. Apakah menuntut kembali tanah milik keluarganya itu dipanggil sebagai pendatang?

JANGAN BIADAB!

Aku tak kisah kau mengarut dengan kisah Laksamana Cheng Ho tak jumpa makanan halal dan jadi marah bila tiba di tanah Melayu. Kau mengarut pada sejarah bangsa kau, itu hak kau. Tapi, jangan menyentuh sejarah bangsa aku. Kepada Lim Kit Siang dan John Doe, masih ramai melayu yang celik sejarah.

KEPADA ANAK MELAYU YANG MEMBACA ARTIKEL INI, SEBARKAN ARTIKEL INI SELEPAS MEMBACA. ANDA MAHU SUATU HARI NANTI WARISAN BANGSA ANDA MENJADI TARUHAN MEREKA YANG TAMAK.

Here's The Magic Formula For Building Massive Companies

2013-02-04T11:27:00.001+08:00

The founding partner of Silicon Valley investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, Ben Horowitz, recently gave a great presentation at the DLD conference in Munich.
Ben explained how Andreessen Horowitz chooses its investments.
Specifically, he laid out what might be described as a "magic formula" for building humongous, world-dominating, dynastic-wealth-creating tech companies.
Here's his presentation...

Ben Horowitz is not just an amazingly successful investor. He is also an entrepreneur. So he has seen this game from both sides...

Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz looks at 2,400 qualified (pre-screened) investment opportunities a year. It invests in 1 in 100.

Horowitz says that four things are "knowable" about every opportunity: 1) the idea, 2) the entrepreneur, 3) the market, 4) the business model.

But don't be too obsessed with the original idea. Horowitz pointed out that the original "ideas" of many huge companies were distinctly underwhelming. Then the ideas evolved...

In other words, the original idea actually isn't that important.

Ultimately, however, the idea has to have one very important quality...

It has to be a "breakthrough" idea.

But there's a problem with breakthrough ideas...

They seem crazy.

Ben flipped through some breakthrough ideas that seemed insane at the time... PayPal

Nicira

AirBnB

So that brings us to the second part of the "magic formula..."

The entrepreneur.

Great entrepreneurs need to be brilliant, but...

They don't need to have college degrees.

In fact, Horowitz says, the single most important quality in an entrepreneur (in addition to brilliance) is this: "Courage." Why? Because when the going gets tough--which it will--only those with courage will see the project through. It takes great courage to drop out of college. That's why Ben said that Andreessen Horowitz actively looks for brilliant college dropouts.

In fact, Horowitz says, dropping out of college can be a sign of all three key characteristics: brilliance, courage, and a breakthrough idea (an idea good enough to make a smart person walk away from guaranteed success).

Next, there's the "market opportunity."

Yes, to support a huge company, the market opportunity has to be huge. However...!

It may not SEEM huge in the original incarnation. For example, which market would have seemed bigger in Facebook's early days--a "social network for college students"... or "Chinese food"? Right--Chinese food. But look at Facebook now...

And then there's the business model...

Horowitz's main message about business models? Ignore the "experts." If you can build a service that people love, you'll figure out how to monetize it.

How many people in the 1990s confidently asserted that Amazon would "never make money?" More people than you can possibly imagine...

And Facebook! It was obvious to almost everyone who looked at Facebook that Facebook was just a silly fad that would never be a business. Facebook, for example, was obviously just a poor clone of the amazing MySpace..

And Twitter! Imagine thinking that you could build a business out of 140-character blurts.

In short...

More specifically...

So that's the magic formula for building a huge company.

How To Deal With A Setback

2013-01-29T06:11:00.002+08:00

We’ve all had days in the office we’d rather forget, decisions we wish would have gone the other way, news we would have rather never received. This is the one thing that all entrepreneurs share in common – at one time or another you will have to accept that you’ve failed.
The thing that sets us apart is how we choose to deal with the failure. As yesterday’s guest blog pointed out, we can all have 20/20 vision when it comes to hindsight. So how do the world’s leading entrepreneur’s deal with setbacks? One person who’s had more than his fair share is Richard Branson.
“My nickname is Dr. Yes. I can't resist a challenge. And I've certainly said yes to too many things in my life. Therefore, not everything has worked out. Fortunately, most of the things I've said yes to were small ideas, just starting from scratch. So if they didn't work out, it wouldn't damage us too much financially or rummage the brand too much,” confessed the Virgin Group Founder in a recent entrepreneur.com interview.
While many of Branson’s mistakes occurred early on in his business career, there are a few more prominent ones that he and the Virgin Group have had to take on the chin, as he later concedes in the interview.

“With Virgin Cola, we should not have assumed big means sleepy - we should have prepared for the largest global soft drink company to fight back. The experience certainly hasn't stopped us from taking on other Goliaths though.
“At Virgin, we don't spend much time regretting the past, and we don't let mistakes or failures get to us, and we certainly don't fear failure. We picked ourselves up and tried again and searched for opportunities in other gaps in the market.”
The business world is full of tales of people making it happen after being faced with failure, with Steve Jobs being another classic example. The college dropout, fired tech executive and unsuccessful businessman ending up spearheading one of the world’s most successful and iconic brands.
So, have you got an example of how you’ve managed to bounce back from an error of judgement? Do you think it’s important to let failures shape the decision making process in future projects? Or do you, in the words of Richard Branson think “screw it, let’s do it”?
Let us know... - By RB

Why the decisions you make, make the difference between rich and poor

2013-01-24T17:11:00.002+08:00

We all long for the freedom to choose. This is why throughout history people have fought for, and given their lives to, the cause of freedom. This is why families will leave everything to emigrate from an oppressive country to a free one. This is why we celebrate great men like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi.
But like most freedoms, choice is a double-edged sword. When we're free to choose, we're free to make decisions that are good but also decisions that are bad. Often, what separates the successful from the unsuccessful, the rich from the poor, is the choices that we make.
Financially, with every dollar we have, we have the power to choose our future: to be rich, poor, or middle class. Our spending habits reflect who we are and what we value. Poor people have poor spending habits. Rich people have rich spending habits.
If you want to be rich, it's important that you understand the power of choice and know how to make good financial choices.
Choose to be rich every day.
Choose As a boy, I had the benefit of a rich dad who taught me to think like the rich think. He taught me the difference between an asset and a liability. A long time ago, as a little boy, I chose to be rich. I knew all I had to do was learn to acquire assets.
Most people choose not to be rich. It's too much of a hassle. They'll say things like, "I'm not interested in money," "I don't have to worry because I'm still young," "I'll never be rich," and "My spouse handles all the finances."
This way of thinking robs you of two important things: Time and learning, your most important assets.
If you want to be rich, you must stop having excuses and start having a new mindset. You must make the choice to every day invest your time into learning about money and how it works. You must choose to find great deals and assets. You must choose to be rich. It does not happen by accident.
I choose to be rich, and I make that choice every day.
Welcome new ideas.
Many people choose to follow the same old line of thinking when it comes to money: go to school, get a good job, buy a house, save money, and invest in a balanced portfolio of stocks, bonds and mutual funds. The problem is that those are the old rules of money. They are no longer valid. Not only that, following them will make you poor.
If you want to be rich, you must choose to be open-minded. This means not following the conventional wisdom about money, and instead, thinking for yourself. There are many intelligent people who argue and defend when a new idea clashes with the way they think. Their intelligence is really arrogance. A truly intelligent person welcomes new ideas.
The rich choose to listen and learn when presented with new ideas. This is why the rich are some of the most humble people I know.
Increase your financial education.
A friend of mine had her apartment burglarized. The thieves took her TV and left all the books. The funny thing is that most people would make the same choice. Most people would rather have a TV than books. But it's those who choose to invest in education rather than distract themselves with entertainments who are successful in life.
If you want to be rich, you must choose to invest in your financial education. Personally, I love seminars. I like them to be at least two-days long so I can immerse myself in the subject. In 1973, I spent $385 on a real estate seminar that has made me millions of dollars since. I also love audio books. I can listen and learn wherever I'm at, and I like the ability to easily review what I've heard. Finally, I love to learn from others. I make friends with people who think differently than me and who are smarter than me. They teach me valuable lessons every day.
The result of all this is that I add new ways of thinking to my old ways of thinking. This gives me multiple angles to approach a problem or situation. Choosing to increase my financial education by always being humble and willing to learn has allowed me to have a sophisticated financial intelligence that has in turn, made me very rich.
How about you? What choices are you making to be rich? How have your choices kept you from being successful?
Today, I encourage you to take a look at the choices you make. At the end of the day, our choices are one of the few things in life we can totally control. Choose to be rich.

MUMBLING..MUMBLING

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1. Role model

2. The one to encourage

3. Your any time rescue

4. Good listener

5. A soul mate

6. The big brother/big sister

7. A man of wisdom/A woman of wisdom

8. Who keeps you accountable

9. Having common career

PERFECT+SEXY+NICE COUPLE & PERFECT+SEXY+NICE BODY

BOYCOTT ISRAELI PRODUCTS

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ISRAEL ZIONIST'S IDF SNIPERS ARE SON OF THE BITCHES

A Letter from Nelson Mandela to Thomas Friedman (Columnist of New York Times aka Zionist's SOTB )

PANADOL = Paracetomol = Acetaminophen = Tylenol and Others Kill Snakes...SNAKES ??

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***En-route to be a successful entrepreneur

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1. The Novelist

2. The Standout

3. The Graphic Addict

4. The Mysterious

Female Masturbation: Yes, Yes, Yes....There's an app for that!!

THE BRITISH MANDATE

THE BRITISH MANDATE

The Zionist Commission

The Paris Peace Conference

The King-Crane Commission

The borders of Palestine

The course of the Mandate

The start of the Mandate

The "Churchill Memorandum"

Jewish Immigration into Palestine 1930-1939 84/

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Gitmo prisoner: ‘We all died when Obama indefinitely detained us’

“I scare myself when I look in the mirror. Let them kill us as we have nothing to lose. We died when Obama indefinitely detained us. Respect us or kill us. It is your choice. The US must take off its mask and kill us.”

"KAMI BUKAN PENDATANG WAHAI LIM KIT SIANG!" - ORANG MELAYU

Here's The Magic Formula For Building Massive Companies

Ben Horowitz is not just an amazingly successful investor. He is also an entrepreneur. So he has seen this game from both sides...

Andreessen Horowitz looks at 2,400 qualified (pre-screened) investment opportunities a year. It invests in 1 in 100.

Horowitz says that four things are "knowable" about every opportunity: 1) the idea, 2) the entrepreneur, 3) the market, 4) the business model.

But don't be too obsessed with the original idea. Horowitz pointed out that the original "ideas" of many huge companies were distinctly underwhelming. Then the ideas evolved...

In other words, the original idea actually isn't that important.

Ultimately, however, the idea has to have one very important quality...

It has to be a "breakthrough" idea.

But there's a problem with breakthrough ideas...

They seem crazy.

Ben flipped through some breakthrough ideas that seemed insane at the time... PayPal

Nicira

AirBnB

So that brings us to the second part of the "magic formula..."

The entrepreneur.

Great entrepreneurs need to be brilliant, but...

They don't need to have college degrees.

In fact, Horowitz says, dropping out of college can be a sign of all three key characteristics: brilliance, courage, and a breakthrough idea (an idea good enough to make a smart person walk away from guaranteed success).

Next, there's the "market opportunity."

Yes, to support a huge company, the market opportunity has to be huge. However...!

It may not SEEM huge in the original incarnation. For example, which market would have seemed bigger in Facebook's early days--a "social network for college students"... or "Chinese food"? Right--Chinese food. But look at Facebook now...

And then there's the business model...

Horowitz's main message about business models? Ignore the "experts." If you can build a service that people love, you'll figure out how to monetize it.

How many people in the 1990s confidently asserted that Amazon would "never make money?" More people than you can possibly imagine...

And Facebook! It was obvious to almost everyone who looked at Facebook that Facebook was just a silly fad that would never be a business. Facebook, for example, was obviously just a poor clone of the amazing MySpace..

And Twitter! Imagine thinking that you could build a business out of 140-character blurts.

In short...

More specifically...

So that's the magic formula for building a huge company.

How To Deal With A Setback

Why the decisions you make, make the difference between rich and poor

Jewish Immigration into Palestine 1930-1939 ^84/