Facts, Facts, Facts! They are pesky things

In my last posting to my blog "People Can’t Seem To Get Their Facts Right! (Comments)," I shared with my readers the reaction to my posting of two Letters to the Editor, the first of which set forth certain erroneous “facts,” and the second was my responding letter setting the record straight.

Not long after another letter appeared in The Record again setting forth facts, which I found to be erroneous. A transcript of the letter follows:

Obama hurting U.S. prestige

 What is apparent to me regarding the progress of the negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which are to be "fully" spelled out by June 30, is that the United States' status and perception as a superpower worldwide has been vastly diminished. Iran's quest for regional hegemony has been greatly enhanced.

 There is little doubt that American military and economic strength was unable to secure significant concessions from a low-grade military power and economically stressed nation.

 On this president's watch we have witnessed political chaos in Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Tunisia. Need I point out how the president has bowed to the will of Vladimir Putin in his aggressive goals toward Ukraine?

 Jerrold Terdiman 

Woodcliff Lake, April 8

It did not take me long to respond, as set forth below:

The Letter to the Editor “Obama hurting U.S. prestige" (Record April 11) is way off the mark.

It ignores history. Did the US do better under past Administrations in dealing with an even lower grade power, North Korea, which continues to be a greater threat then Iran is, or  will ever be.

Also focusing on the President in office as the culprit when things go wrong is naïve.

As Shakespeare said: “What’s past is prologue”.

Iran is the power that it is as a direct result of our ill-advised invasion of Iraq. Before that invasion Iraq was a counterweight to Iran and fought a long and bitter war against that country. Now it is an ally.

Iran used to be a democratic state, until the Eisenhower Administration overthrew the government, and installed the hated Shah, which led to his overthrow by the present regime.

Reagan strengthened the Ayatollah in the infamous Iran/Contra scandal.

Russian aggression was encouraged when the G.W. Bush Administration did nothing in response to the invasion by Russia of Georgia in 2008.

And of even greater importance are the slanders and the lies that are now directed at Hillary Clinton, and particularly the Clinton family’s great achievements in dealing with a variety of problems both Domestic and International through the Clinton Foundation.

Thus the Right Wing publication The National Review published a smear of the foundation under the heading "The Clinton Foundation Is Not a Charity" and then among its many unsupported and false allegations there appears this:

Charity Navigator, which rates nonprofits, recently refused to rate the Clinton Foundation because its “atypical business model . . . doesn’t meet our criteria.”

Charity Navigator put the foundation on its “watch list,” which warns potential donors about investing in problematic charities.

Wow! That’s pretty damning, if that reputable organization had said that, but here is what they in fact did say:

Why isn't this organization rated?

 …this charity's atypical business model can not be accurately captured in our current rating methodology. Our removal of The Clinton Foundation from our site is neither a condemnation nor an endorsement of this charity.

 What does it mean that this organization isn’t rated?

 A lack of a rating does not indicate a positive or negative assessment by Charity Navigator.

Charity Navigator then goes on the explain:

Bill Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation is on Charity Navigator's Watchlist. Here's why:

 On February 18, 2015, The Washington Post reported that, "the foundation has won accolades from philanthropy experts and has drawn bipartisan support, with members of the George W. Bush administration often participating in its programs."

The article also states that:

...in posting its donor data, the foundation goes beyond legal requirements, and experts say its transparency level exceeds that of most philanthropies.

(The link attached to the quote from the National Review about Charity Navigator simply takes you to the National Review website, if you want to see the actual Charity Navigator comments I suggest this link.

What an incredible difference between what the National Review claimed and the truth.

Finally, the reader might ask where did the National Review get this story? it was taken verbatim from an article in the Murdoch-owned New York Post (I assume with permission) but none of it is true, as a quick check with the Navigator site reveals.

And what do we find out about the Clinton foundation. Let us look at Wikipedia.

It has some negative things to say in quoting from the Right Wing lawyers association The Federalist, but it then goes on to say:

The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to strengthening integrated health systems in the developing world and expanding access to care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Organizations such as the Clinton Foundation continue to supply anti-malarial drugs to Africa and other affected areas; according to director Inder Singh, in 2011 more than 12 million individuals will be supplied with subsidized anti-malarial drugs. As of January 1, 2010, the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, became a separate nonprofit organization called the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI).

 CHAI strives to make treatment for HIV/AIDS more affordable and to implement large-scale integrated care, treatment, and prevention programs. Since its inception, CHAI has helped bring AIDS care and treatment to over 750,000 people living with HIV/Aids around the world. Its activities have included AIDS care and treatment in Africa, including the brokering of drug distribution agreements. During President Clinton's 2006 trip to Africa, CHAI signed agreements with several new countries. Over the course of the past year, CHAI has expanded its partner countries and members of the Procurement Consortium to over 70 including 22 governments, who are now able to purchase AIDS medicines and diagnostic equipment at CHAI's reduced prices.

 CHAI launched the Pediatric and Rural Initiatives in 2005 to focus on bringing AIDS care and treatment to those most often marginalized— children and those living in rural areas. CHAI also negotiated agreements that reduce the prices of second-line drugs and rapid diagnostic tests. In May 2007, CHAI and UNITAID announced agreements that help middle-income and low-income countries save money on second-line drugs. The partnership also reduced the price of a once-daily first-line treatment to less than $1 per day.

 In addition to drug access programs, CHAI also focuses on country operations, with programs that help governments with pediatric care and treatment, improving rural health care and human resources for health and the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT). In 2008, approximately 185,000 children benefited from increased access to infant diagnosis aided by the training of 8,500 health care workers who offered pediatric antiretroviral treatment (ART). 2008 also saw six PMTCT country programs launched which ensured that every HIV pregnant woman in the program catchment area was provided with prevention, care and treatment services including counseling, testing and feeding recommendations.

 In the Summer of 2008, CHAI's Executive Vice President, Inder Singh, announced the closing of cost-reduction agreements with several suppliers of malaria medication, which will be extended to CHAI partners as part of its care and treatment program.

Does that sound like an organization that should be criticized and condemned ? Its legitimacy questioned? Why is the media, looking for points of criticism?

Would anyone criticize and condemn it, if it were not associated with the Clintons?

But as is often said: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

One of the leading contributors to this foundation, which is one of many foundations the Clintons support, is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – III

This is the third in this series. I recommend that you read or re-read Part I, which you can find here as well as Part II, which you can find here.

In both Parts I and II I outlined misbehavior by police in my own experience, as well in the news. I don’t want the reader to come away as a result with the impression that I think the police, as a whole, is corrupt or anxious to kill. It is the usual situations of a few bad apples.

But there are many important reasons why there is often incompetence and/or corruption in the police. Most important is that the police in the US are unionized. I happen to favor unions in the private sector, where the bargaining power of the individual worker is none existent, and where the demise of unions is a major factor in the wage stagnation that we are now experiencing.

But the police are different. The police are in many ways a quasi-military force, who like the military, often have to put their lives on the line, and have the power of life or death over those they confront. It is vital that they obey orders from their superiors, and not put the interest of themselves, or of their comrades, over that of the public. Insubordination ought to no more be tolerated in the police, than it would be in the military.

Can anyone image a members of our military turning their back in disrespect on the President of the United States, or large numbers staging a slow-down because they are displeased with the policies instituted by their superiors, as the police recently did relative to the mayor in NYC. A quick court marshal would follow. We need the same discipline for our police forces throughout the US.

All this occurred in New York because the mayor, who has a son of color, expressed empathy for the demonstrators exercising their constitutional rights to peacefully demonstrate, and put into words what every father of an African-American knows (but which is probably good advise for all races) be very polite and non-confrontational with the police. Or maybe it occurred because the police were angry because they liked the freedom to stop and frisk at random in neighborhoods of color, which the new mayor and new police commissioner ended.

But what finally triggered the expression of their pent-up anger, was the assassination of two of their comrades by a deranged man, who had indicated that much of his anger against the police was triggered by the demonstrations. Of course, his anger wasn’t just directed against the NYC police, for before undertaking that wanton act, he shot his girlfriend, and thereafter shot himself, something he had considered doing in the first place.

So what are we to make of this wanton killing by a deranged man. The head of the police union immediately pointed the finger at the mayor.

I rather think that there is a clearer connection, for it falls into line with the many killings by deranged men at schools, recently at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut. See here, but less unusual then most think. CNN reports: 

After Tuesday's shooting at an Oregon high school, many media outlets, including CNN, reported that there have been 74 school shootings in the past 18 months.

That's the time period since the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 children and six adults were shot to death.

It prompted me to publish a letter in the North Jersey Record, which I reproduce below:

As I did in my previous blog posts, I set forth below the transcript of the letter for those who may have difficulty reading the clipping.

The tragic death of New York Police officer Rafael Ramos makes him another victim of a deranged man with a gun, though it has been presented as being the result of demonstrations against the killing of unarmed African-American men, and even as a result of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s action in ending the racially charged and racially profiled policy of stop and frisk.

It is no such thing!

It is no different from the many tragic death around the country, highlighted most recently by the murders at Sandy Hook in Connecticut. These are murders by deranged persons, who should have been in treatment, and who have easy access to guns.

How much longer must this country live with an atmosphere where the joy of owning a gun and the feeling of power that it gives its owners, not to speak of the all the money to be made by manufacturers and dealers, trumps the right to life of innocent people, whether they are school children or police officers.

It is difficult to understand why the right to own and drive an automobile can be licensed, but the right to own and shoot a gun cannot.

The second amendment has been completely distorted and given a meaning, which it does not have, and was never meant to have by its authors and did not have for most of this countries history.

Emil Scheller
Fort Lee, December 27

As I write this blog post I am reminded of the reaction of the President of the NRA, the lobbying arm of the gun manufacturers, after the Sandy Hook shooting. He said:

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Well, the two cops had guns. It didn’t stop their killer. Does the NRA care? Do they care about anything but the profits of the gun manufacturers for whom the solution will always be “we want to sell more guns – we want more profits!!!

But let us not be deceived. We have many more problems with our criminal justice system.

I will go into greater detail in future posts. But for now allow me to just set out a graph that speaks volumes.

What is there about the US that would make us have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world?

I will come back to this in another context, but for now allow me to express my disappointment that our President, in his sixth State of the Union address, did not speak about this subject. It is one of the few areas where he might be able to find common ground with Republicans.

The Washington Post reports: 

But on issues of sentencing reform and prison recidivism, Republicans — especially several governors in Southern states — have been the leaders, earning praise from prison reform groups on both sides of the aisle for efforts to save money by implementing rehabilitation programs and curbing skyrocketing prison costs.

A nonpartisan study issued last year about how one of the bluest states in the union, Massachusetts, could cut prison costs credited Republicans states for how they have tackled prison reform…

‘This is our chance to show we can provide solutions to affect significant problems,’ said Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

The renewed focus on costsaving reforms marks a dramatic, decade-long shift by Republican governors, many of whom previously won election by stumping on tough-on-crime platforms.

But, as many of those governors have noted, one way to cut state costs is to decrease the number of people being locked up for nonviolent offenses and rid the law books of mandatory minimum sentences for such offenses.

In addition to Perry, prominent Republicans who once trumpeted tough-on-crime ­stances and now call for sentencing changes and rehabilitation programs for drug and other nonviolent offenders include former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former House speaker Newt Gingrich. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a tea party hero, has made reform of mandatory minimum sentences a major focus in recent months.

“We’re not a soft-on-crime state, you know what I’m saying? . . . We’re tough on crime,” Perry said. “But I hope we are also seen as a smart-on-crime state.”

That is quite a change from the tough on crime of Republicans in years and decades past, when, e.g. George H.W. Bush used the famous, or infamous, Willie Horton ad (See here) in his campaign against Michael Dukakis.

But whatever the past, this is an issue that now appears to have Republican support, and if the President and the Democratic Party don’t seize the opportunity, the chance for reform may well be wasted.

I will have more to say in the area of the American Justice system next time.

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While I have decided not to dwell on the Israeli issue any further, I cannot ignore the outrage of the Boehner/Netanyahu axis. They are both a disgrace in meddling in the domestic affairs of the other’s country. Netanyahu will face elections in Israel on March 17 according to Fox News, but instead of campaigning in Israel, he will campaign by addressing the US Congress on March 3, two weeks before the Israeli election. This is a blatant and transparent attempt on the part of both the Speaker and the Prime Minister to meddle in the affairs of the other country. Even while this is likely to aid Netanyahu in Israel, it is at the same time an attempt to embarrass the President of the US, by Netanyahu coming here, once again, in his ongoing and endless attempt to influence the US not to negotiate with Iran and instead go to war. He has said the US has no right to tell Israel not to attack Iran, which the US has never done, while trying to ensnare the US into war with Iran.

Netanyahu’s crude attempt to meddle in American domestic affairs has a long and infamous history. He is the proverbial child always crying wolf and has been doing so since more than two years. On September 12, 2012 I published an article entitled: “I am an American”, from which I quote:

But Netanyahu has gone out of his way to violate every rule of diplomatic behavior. In my view he has been a disaster for Israel. Since any Letter to the Editor has to be short I commend readers to "Peter Beinart on Netanyahu’s Bullying Act" from The Daily Beast.

That article relates in some detail Netanyahu’s long history of meddling in American politics, so much so that the Republican Secretary of State James Baker briefly had him banned from the State Department. But beyond that, and I quote from the article, “Netanyahu has been brazenly intervening in American politics—often with an eye to screwing Democratic presidents.”…

But now he has the gall to come to the US and use our airwaves to try to dictate American foreign policy. Appearing on US Television, Netanyahu declared: “Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.” I agree with the Prime Minster that no one has a right to place a “Red Light” before Israel. But, in fact no one has!!!...

The attempt by any country to dictate American policy, particularly on issues of war and peace must be rejected by all Americans.

What did the Prime Minister show to the US to demonstrate the imminent danger? Look here.

That was two years ago. Is Iran now in the final stage? Not even the man who keeps crying wolf claims that is the case. The negotiations, whether they finally succeed, or not, have delayed the Iranian progress. If the danger ever was anywhere near as imminent as the fear monger claimed, the Iranian’s would have the bomb today.

And what is the alternative to the present course? To go to war? Netanyahu is ready to hold the coat of the US. Israel is not about to commit that folly, nor would its military and intelligence agencies allow it. Should there be more sanctions by the US, which would end the negotiations, and worse, end the unity of the allies in imposing multi-lateral sanctions?

But quite aside from that, does his diagram look like an atomic bomb?

Here is a terrific YouTube video on that subject.



I urge the reader to watch it. If nothing else, it is funny and it does a good job of relating the history of the “the boy who cried wolf”. He points out that the cry that Iran is about to get “the bomb” goes back to 1992.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

I AM A JEW (PART XVI - A Return to a Defense of Israel’s Policies & a Rebuttal Continued)

As the title shows this is the 16th part (actually the 17^th, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on the parts.

Part I, Part II, Part III, Special Bulletin, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, Part XII, Part XIII, Part XIV and Part XV.

This part of my dissertation picks up where I left off in discussing the article “Israel’s Borders."

I left off by thoroughly rebutting the assertion that "Israel having been an expansionist state since its establishment, is a myth," and showed that this is clearly not a myth, but rather, an established fact."

Now the next assertion in the article at hand, or as the author of that article likes to put it:

Myth: Judea and Samaria (also called "the West Bank") are part of Jordan.

This is hardly a myth. It is another straw man. Of course the West Bank is not part of Jordan!!!

On August 1, 1988, as reported in the New York Times: 

King Hussein of Jordan tonight abandoned to the Palestine Liberation Organization any claim to the Israeli-occupied West Bank

Now I begin to feel that the article is hardly worth further rebuttal. It is so full of deception and misinformation that it discredits itself, so I will address only one more assertion.

Myth: Israeli settlements in Judea/Samaria (the "West Bank") are illegal, an obstacle in peace. 

Fact: Contrary to what Arab propaganda suggests, Jordan was never sovereign in Judea/Samaria (the "West Bank"). Thus, the constantly repeated accusation of "Israeli occupation" is pointless. Numerous international legal authorities, among them Eugene Rostow, have shown conclusively that Israel's rights in Judea/Samaria (the "West Bank") are based on international law and are further affirmed by U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338. President Reagan concluded that Jewish settlements are not illegal and that "...all people — Moslems, Jews, and Christians — are entitled to live in the West Bank."

Here the so-called “facts” are so numerous and so intertwined that it is difficult to deal with them within a reasonable space. But to illustrate how wrong these assertions are, I need do no more than to quote from UN Resolution 242 which says the opposite of what the author claims.

UN Security Council Resolution 242 calls for, and I quote:

Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; 

and territories is defined by the following map:

The author here relies heavily on Eugene Rostow, not exactly an uninterested observer, but rather another polemicist on behalf of Israel’s expansionism. I will respond to his polemic in due course.

But in so far it is possible, the claims here made are dealt with in an article by David Ignatius writing in the Washington Post of June 4, 2009.

Part of his article are worth quoting because they set the record straight, instead of cherry picking it.

He writes:

President Ronald Reagan stopped the characterization of Israeli settlements as "illegal" when he took office in 1981, but he opposed the expansion of them.

Looking at what Reagan and other Presidents and Secretaries of State said we must look to the Foundation for Middle East Peace, that sets forth what the various Presidents, including Reagan, said, and it shows that Reagan was an outlier. But even the Reagan Administration speaking through its Secretary of State George Schultz in September of 1982 said:

". . . the question isn't whether they [settlements] are legal or illegal; the question is are they constructive in the effort to arrange a situation that may, in the end, be a peaceful one and be one in which the people of the region can live in a manner that they prefer.  [President Reagan's] answer to that is no, expansion of those settlements is not a constructive move." (Emphasis added)

Returning to the Ignatius article, we quote further:

Every administration since the 1967 war -- a total of nine -- has made essentially the same demand. Netanyahu, like previous Israeli leaders, has rejected it.

Ignatius goes on to write:

Year after year, decade after decade, American officials keep repeating U.S. opposition to the settlements -- and Israeli governments keep on building them. More than 120 settlements have been constructed over the past 42 years, and the Israeli population in the West Bank now totals 190,000 in the Jerusalem area and 289,000 elsewhere.

 For years, the official U.S. position was that the settlements were illegal under international law because they violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, on protection of civilians in time of war. That document, adopted in 1949, specifies: "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." The application of this article to Israel was endorsed by the administrations of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

 An emphatic statement of the U.S. view that settlements were illegal came from George H.W. Bush in 1971, when he was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: "We regret Israel's failure to acknowledge its obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as its actions which are contrary to the letter and spirit of this convention."

 Israel's position was that the West Bank was not "occupied" but rather "administered" territory whose pre-1967 status had been unclear under international law. Jordan had ruled the West Bank from 1949 until 1967, but most nations hadn't recognized its sovereignty. To complicate matters further, the Israeli Supreme Court has described the West Bank as "under belligerent occupation."

President Ronald Reagan stopped the characterization of Israeli settlements as "illegal" when he took office in 1981, but he opposed the expansion of them. That position has been maintained by subsequent administrations, which have termed the building of new settlements "an obstacle to peace" and said that the status of existing settlements should be resolved in peace negotiations. Israel has steadfastly refused interim attempts to curtail its settlements, including announcing a specific reservation to the 2003 "road map" for peace.

Before I close this part of my series allow me to expand upon what UN resolutions 242 and 338 actually say. For that I turn to the Reit Institute, a non-partisan non-profit strategy group based in Tel Aviv. 

I quote: 

The main articles of UN Security Council Resolution 242 (11/67) call for:

• Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the 1967 war.
• Termination of the state of belligerency.
• Mutual "acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area, and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."
• Achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem.

Resolution 338 (10/73) reiterates the importance of Resolution 242, and calls upon the sides to begin negotiations with the aim of achieving a just and durable peace.

I hardly think that these resolutions form the basis for Israeli settlement policy or give it any legitimacy. To make such a claim strains credulity.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete.

I AM A JEW (PART XI - The Israeli Propaganda Machine)

As the title shows this is the 11th part (actually the 12^th, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on the titles: "I AM A JEW (Part I)," "I AM A JEW (Part II)," "I AM A JEW (Part III)," "I AM A JEW (Special Bulletin)," "I AM A JEW (Part IV - The Torah & The Talmud)," "I AM A JEW (Part V - Gaza Is A Huge Prison)," "I AM A JEW (PART VI - The Palestinians)," "I AM A JEW (PART VII - A Defense of Israel’s Policies and a Rebuttal)", "I AM A JEW (PART VIII - Hamas & Likud)" ,"I AM A JEW (PART IX- The Palestinian Diaspora & The Right of Return)" and "I AM A JEW (PART X - The Abject Poverty of the Palestinians)."

As I write these articles I become increasingly aware of how uninformed and misinformed we are about the nature of the Israeli government, its aims and its crimes.

This was brought home to me when in response to my post "I AM A JEW (PART IX - The Palestinian Diaspora & The Right of Return)" one of my subscribers, Ernest Hauser of the Bronx, NY, wrote:

The Arab refugee problem is indeed sad and difficult.

In 1948 the Arab neighbors Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan] urged the Arabs to flee and return after the Jews were driven into the sea. Well, that did not happen.  

Israel took in about a half million Jews who were persecuted in the Arab world, but none of the Arab lands gave citizenship to any of the Palestinian refugees.

They prefer to keep then in camps as a thorn to Israel.

This brought home to me just how effective Israeli propaganda has been and continues to be.

The vast majority of Americans and particularly American Jews probably believe the statement by Ernest Hauser, yet it is demonstrably false. I myself may have believed it, until I did the extensive research required for this series. Yet, even in the face of facts contradicting Hauser’s assertion, the myth lives on.

My response to Hauser is set forth below:

You are simply repeating the standard line from Israeli propaganda sources. Before you mindlessly repeat things you ought to take the time to research the matter to determine the facts.

Or at least read my posts.

In "I AM A JEW (Part II)” I wrote and I quote:

There has long been a debate about whether Arabs left Israel out of their own free will, at the urgings of their leaders or were driven out by Israeli forces conducting ethnic cleansing. After extensive research I have concluded that both are true. What has come to be known as the Deir Yassin massacre is instructive.

I quote from Wikipedia:

The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Irgun Zevai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Israel Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian Arab village of roughly 600 people. The assault occurred as Jewish militia sought to relieve the blockade of Jerusalem by Palestinian forces during the civil war that preceded the end of British rule in Palestine.

Around 107 villagers were killed during and after the battle for the village, including women and children—some were shot, while others died when hand grenades were thrown into their homes. Several villagers were taken prisoner and may have been killed after being paraded through the streets of West Jerusalem, though accounts vary. Four of the attackers died, with around 35 injured. The killings were condemned by the leadership of the Haganah—the Jewish community's main paramilitary force—and by the area's two chief rabbis. The Jewish Agency for Israel sent Jordan's King Abdullah a letter of apology, which he rebuffed.

The deaths became a pivotal event in the Arab–Israeli conflict for their demographic and military consequences. The narrative was embellished and used by various parties to attack each other—by the Palestinians against Israel; by the Haganah to play down their own role in the affair; and by the Israeli Left to accuse the Irgun and Lehi of violating the Jewish principle of purity of arms, thus blackening Israel's name around the world. News of the killings sparked terror within the Palestinian community, encouraging them to flee from their towns and villages in the face of Jewish troop advances, and it strengthened the resolve of Arab governments to intervene, which they did five weeks later. (Emphasis added)

And in an article by David Remick in The New Yorker, entitled: "Blood and Sand - A revisionist Israeli historian revisits his country’s origins” published on May 5, 2008, he writes:

"In 1988, Morris published “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949,” which revolutionized Israeli historiography and, to a great extent, a nation’s understanding of its own birth. Relying less on testimony than on the newly available documents, Morris described how and why sixty per cent of the Palestinians were uprooted and their society destroyed. It was a far more complex picture than many Israelis were prepared to accept. The book features a map that shows three hundred and eighty-nine Arab villages, from upper Galilee to the Negev Desert. Morris revealed that in forty-nine of these villages the indigenous Arabs were expelled by the Haganah and other Jewish military forces; in sixty-two villages, the Arabs fled out of fear, having heard rumors of attacks and even massacres; in six, the villagers left at the instruction of Palestinian local leaders. The refugees, who probably expected to return to their homes in a matter of weeks or months, went to Gaza and the West Bank, and also to surrounding Arab countries—Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria—where, to this day, they have never been fully absorbed."

You can also take a look here and I quote, e.g.

Various quotes have been attributed to Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, such as “The Arabs were urged to flee by their own leaders" and "The refugees were confident their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two”. Childers investigated this claim:

"Another stock quotation down the years has been that, supposedly, of the Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Galilee. For example, Israel's Abba Eban told the U.N. Special Political Committee in 1957 that the Archbishop had "fully confirmed" that the Arabs were urged to flee by their own leaders. I wrote to His Grace, asking for his evidence of such orders. I hold signed letters from him, with permission to publish, in which he has categorically denied ever alleging Arab evacuation orders; he states that no such orders were ever given. He says that his name has been abused for years; and that the Arabs fled through panic and forcible eviction by Jewish troops. 

As for the comment: "but none of the Arab lands gave citizenship to any of the Palestinian refugees. They prefer to keep then in camps as a thorn to Israel”, it is true that none of the Arab lands gave citizenship to any of the Palestinian refugees, but it is not true that they did it so to keep the camps as a thorn to Israel.

Unlike the myth that Arabs are “one people” they consist of very diverse tribes, with many different forms of Islamic religions and ethnicities. The Arab countries are poor and struggling to survive themselves. The refugee camps are an enormous burden, and trying to assimilate, a foreign poverty-stricken group into their society, is very difficult. In fact in Jordan, they are considered a threat to the monarchy.  In Lebanon the Christians don’t want more Muslims. Egypt today is more attuned to Israel than to Hamas.

There is zero evidence that it is a plot against Israel.

So before you make glib statement without doing your homework, you should make it a point to truly ascertain the facts.

But why is there such universality of misconceptions? There can be little doubt that the Israeli propaganda machine in the US is extremely powerful. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations lists 51 organizations. Most of these are charitable and have no political agenda.

But the most prominent among them, are at the forefront of the defense of Israel, the shaping of public opinion and the lobbying of our government. They defend and advocate Israeli government policy as faithfully as the Communist party did in days of yore and its most faithful adherents believe and propagate these views as faithfully as members of the Communist party once did.

Wikipedia describes “The Israeli lobby” as

...the diverse coalition of those who, as individuals and as groups, seek to influence the foreign policy of the United States in support of Zionism, Israel or the specific policies of its government. The lobby consists of Jewish-American secular and religious groups. The most famous and visible group within the Israel lobby is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC and other groups within the Israel lobby influence American public policy in a variety of ways such as through education, responding to criticism of Israel, and putting forth arguments in support of Israel. The Israel lobby is known for its success in encouraging U.S. lawmakers to support the policies that it supports.

AIPAC is probably the second-most powerful lobby in the US, second only to the NRA. 

October 19, 2014 – NBC News headline: “Obama speaks at AIPAC conference”

March 2012 (during the primary campaign for the Republican nomination for President) The Washington Post headline “GOP hopefuls blast Obama at AIPAC” and to quote from the article: “Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich on Tuesday dismissed Obama’s promises and accused the White House of weakness in trying to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.”

How many other organization, and particularly lobbies for foreign governments get such overwhelming attention form the country’s leaders and aspiring leaders?

But AIPAC is not alone among the Israeli lobby. There are the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Friends of Likud. Any media criticism of Israel will quickly bring a response from any of these by column if possible, by Letter to the Editor if needed. They influence public opinion and they influence our government.

To a large extent this explains the extensive misconceptions and misinformation of the American public that I am, in my small way, trying to correct.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete.