The First Hanukkah in British Jerusalem, 1917

Dec. 13 2022

On December 9, 1917, as the third full year of World War I drew to a close, British forces captured the historical Jewish capital from the Ottomans. Hanukkah began that evening. Then, on December 11, General Edmund Allenby entered the city and read a proclamation. For the most part, local Jews greeted the arrival of the British with joy. Lenny Ben-David describes this atmosphere. (Several historical photographs can be found at the link below.)

After General Allenby departed from the Old City, officers and the photographer, George Westmoreland, made their way to the Western Wall. Two pictures in the British Imperial War Museum show Jewish worshippers and British officers, who stood at the narrow alley’s northern entrance.

Westmoreland’s pictures were taken at the “Jews’ Wailing Wall” on December 11, 1917. The shadows indicate that the day was getting late. . . . The first picture at the Kotel is fascinating. Upon enlarging the photograph, one can see an officer holding what appears to be a Torah scroll. Between the soldiers and the Wall is a small table, a curiosity considering that until the day before, the Turkish masters of the city banned all furniture at the Jewish site.

Was the table there to hold a Hanukkah menorah? Apparently, that was its purpose.

An official British military report on the Jerusalem victory likened the 1917 liberation to the defeat and ouster of the Seleucid Greeks by the Maccabees and attributed this [comparison] to General Allenby himself.

Read more at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

More about: Edmund Allenby, Hanukkah, Ottoman Palestine, World War I

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy