Today the excitement will hit its peak when the glowing legend Maria Sharapova enters the court in her usual confidence to indulge in another one of those glorious tennis matches that remains forever in the memory of the world; It is in occasions similar to these when Maria exhibits her impeccable tennis skills and dazzling charm to the enthusiastic crowds all over the world patiently waiting to enjoy her rare magic and stunning beauty.

It is such a great enjoyment to watch Maria moving forward and backward in high speed whilst maintaining full balance of her strong body and making all those decisively powerful strikes that always place her opponent in a defensive position deprived of the opportunity of retaliating in an effective manner.

Being the world’s youngest legendary athlete, Maria is undoubtedly a very fast, very strong, and extremely sharp tennis player. She never ceases to find an opportunity to hit a dominated shot and seldom finds trouble in striking those numerous aces which add more thrill to her game whilst yielding her so many winning points; By all means, Maria Sharapova is a triumphant legend.

Today we are on another appointment with the charm and magic of the youngest charismatic tennis athlete Maria Sharapova awaiting to witness another one of these exciting and richly learning experiences normally provided by her when she superstitiously applies herself in exhibiting excellence whilst playing her usual intelligent game and exerting her profound capturing feminine elegance and sensitivity.

Jacob Sifri

I have always been fascinated by football, especially by the way the Barcelona team plays. As a spectator, never really had any interest in other sports until I coincidentally saw Maria Sharapova playing her final tennis match in Rome back in 2011. If I’m to describe my reaction to her game in the simplest possible words, I would definitely say she is way beyond amazing.

It isn't only the way she plays that is totally capturing, it is her honest reaction and the innocent impressions she makes in responding to each and every gesture made by her opponent, colleagues or even the vast crowd watching her all over the world. Her determination, passion, sensitivity and intelligence have turned her game into much more than a tennis match one would normally watch on TV. Maria at that time was actually writing a story of love, respect, appreciation, ability and achievement in a silent language of a beautiful, powerful and fast athletic body.

Like every one else, Maria has fascinated me with the way she charismatically coveys a message with each and every move she makes in the court. Her eyes reveal so much in the aftermath of her surfs or returned shots.

Maria is truly one in trillion. I never really believed there could ever be a young woman like her. Maria is an untold story, an unsung song, a fresh flower that egresses a capturing smell of an eagerly motivated desire to attract life around her and achieve the unachievable. She is the real queen of heart no matter how unjust or cruel the circumstances of reality may be; she is the goddess of sport and the strong woman who defeated all injuries and broke all barriers only to proclaim her supremacy and undisputed position as the youngest most powerful legendary athlete ever existed throughout history. Maria is always a winner.

Maria is a leader in the court, she demands the world’s respect and actually dictates her rhythm and style. When she plays, everything around her simply stops. In every single second of her match she accurately anticipates the coming shots and places herself in the ideal position to react in an unstoppable manner.

Maria is power, speed, fascinating skill and sheer elegance. Without any exaggeration, no words can ever describe the ravishingly beautiful Maria Sharapova. Seriously, have you ever seen a skillful athlete who reacts to the surrounding environment the way she does? How she integrates herself with life and how she inspires every one else.

Everything she does have a meaning, She has determinably developed her joined top physical ability, mental sharpness and interpersonal skills over long years of disciplined practice, to enable her to return the most powerful shots back in an astonishing speed to precise points that can not be blocked by her opponents.

Maria is not merely a tennis player, she is a way of life, a complete culture, a school of thought depicting purity , honesty, sincerity and unlimited ability. Watch how she miraculously exhibits determination with her power, intelligence with her skills, ability with her speed, respect with wins, passion with her preciseness.

Every time Maria plays tennis, she brings so much happiness and truly brightens our lives. Maria is the challenge which no one yet has risen to.

Jacob Sifri

The American people, and many other peoples of the world, have recently taken their streets in a determined expression of resentment of the political and economic power  manipulating their lives and depriving them of their rights to live in dignity whilst pursuing whatever legitimate objectives they aspire. The Occupy has undoubtedly initiated changes in the internal and foreign policies of their government. They have also set the highest social standards for any nation. Nevertheless, these changes remain within the scope of the current governing power they initially resent, and for this reason can't have the kind of effect that would guarantee a full liberation of their homeland and regain the possession of their national wealth.

Whilst it is clearly understood that many of these fortunes were collated illegally, the people's government need not go through a process of  lengthy investigations to prove that such national fortunes actually belong to the people; The doctrine of national interest dictates that a genuine and sincere government can alter the whole regime whenever the interest of the people, which always precedes any other considerations, requires such alteration in the legal, political, economic, financial and social environment encompassed by the said regime.

The Occupy was partly overtaken by other political powers and parties inside America, mainly due to the influence of the mass media owned by those influential figures. Additionally, there is a number of  notable presidential candidates who roam around ideologies which do not actually serve the purpose of radical change in favour of the people. This in essence is an attempt to improve at all fronts, in a slow gradual manner, the prevailing social and economic conditions. You can halt the exhaustive foreign aid to israel right now, however, you would still acknowledge those corporations which uphold zionism  as a constant ideology. Thus the problem was only delayed but not solved, because the zionists would eventually re-dictate their conditions and continue their piracy over the national belongings of the American people. Or you can halt the American – Iranian war for a while but eventually those in lobbies will find ways to resend the young innocent American soldiers to fight this evil war in defending a materialism which seeks to confiscate every thing that actually belongs to them.

The American people are currently endangered by zionism, illegitimate materialism and organized crime. The liberation of the world, and not only America, lies in the success of the Occupy movement to topple the whole regime and restart a historic march under new regime that would free people from all religious, social, financial, economic and legal constraints which in a way or another prevent the individuals and society from  creating a healthy environment conducive to progressing individuals and society to the highest physical, psychological and mental possible state.

The environment in America is not at all satisfactory and it is clearly apparent the Americans are not happy about it. Many leading American revolutionists loudly warn that harmful crimes, failures and omissions are being committed at all fronts. Nevertheless, perpetrators and wrongful actors are almost always shielded by well planned, heavily financed and cautiously controlled media which is mainly operative to air that kind of propaganda that mainly serves to dilute the severity of the committed crimes and wrongful acts so that it becomes easier for the criminals and negligent to evade legal liability and the consequential just punishment.

The evil arms of corruption and injustice are deeply enrooted in the heart of the American regime. It is absolutely delusional to claim that salvation is possible by trying to improve some failed components of this regime. The war is strictly an ideological one, and replacing individuals or altering plans, strategies or policies within a heavily corrupt regime is a true waste of invaluable resources and a heavy cost which would only serve to further exhaust the people with more debts, liabilities and conspiracies.

The sound solution is in the hands of the American Revolution and leading American economists, politicians, nationalisms and legislators who have originally ignited this revolution; the Occupy movement is now considered the only global current that truly offers complete answers to the current turmoil and can indeed put an end to all causes of suffering and social enslavement. This movement has already proven that not only it can completely eradicate the evil Corporotocracy  exposed by the legendary American Economist John Perkins, but it can also end organized crime and draw a complete political system based on sound social laws fully geared to serve the magnificent American people.

To justify the conclusions above, did you notice non of the American presidential candidates have actually addressed the most seriously worrying deficiencies in the American social life i.e. prostitution, moral depravity, child abuse, human slavery and drugs. It is not a secret that 95% of the women indulged in prostitution are forced to sell themselves by vicious criminals, needles to mention about child pornography and drugs. Because of its scale and huge bearing on the individual and society alike, this is one of the most terrifying crimes that confront any politician.

It is absolutely ridiculous to claim that the personal freedom of these woman precludes the government from taking whatever measures to prevent them from selling themselves. This is because these women are actually forced, or could be deceived into this undignified tunnel of pain and humiliation; Because they were raised by prostitution mafias or because they fear vicious revenge from them without being able to find a shelter of protection and safety,  they submissively concede to that terrible destiny drawn to them by these lousy scumbags.

It doesn't take a clever person to realize that prostitution is a grave crime against women and children. Thus it is absolutely rational to put an end to it and save these helpless women and children. It is also very easy to do so: Simply ban prostitution and severely punish those people who try to sanction it no matter what excuses they may present. Prostitution is a crime and it must be halted; those who stand behind it are the lowest types of scumbags and they must be punished. Did you notice how they recently tried to declassify child abuse as a crime? Can you imagine anything worse than that? They are totally depraved criminal satanists with no conscious what so ever, and they certainly are the enemies of life. Why would then politicians in America deliberately avoid addressing this issue when it is so easy to put an end to those criminals? Because they realize that there are high influential powers who control and actually own these slavery professions. If they are to combat it, they would probably loose their chances to win an election or even have a career; America is truly ruled by the depraved criminals.

In summary, Occupy today represents the only movement that would reinstate the dignity of the American people, their genuine freedom and their leading position in the march of humanity. Had I been an American, I would most certainly have joined this supermagnificent movement for not only it represents the hope of the American people, it  is actually the sole route for human salvation and genuine peace. 

Maria is a disciplined athlete whose top standards were only acquired through a life time of hard physical and mental training. Today she stands out amongst a huge number of athletes from all over the world, forcing each and every living heart to respect her colleagues for they only represent the purest and most elevated state of existence; they also represent spiritual values we all need to ignite our hearts with joy and love. The energy gained from her intricate moves, undoubtedly brightens our sphere with the thrill and excitement of watching a world class tennis match played in the nation of the most charming, honourable and wonderful people of the world; the magnificent Australians.

Maria's ingenuity is apparent for she constantly diversify her techniques so that she guarantees her defense is highly effective and her strikes are decisively powerful. The speed she developed over long years of practice, strengthens her ability to return incoming balls with that power and preciseness which yield her a final winning result. Her physical power truly immune her against the strongest fastest tennis surfs and her mental sharpness vastly enhance her retaliation power.

Maria Sharapove could be the youngest legend ever existed. With that enthusiastic eagerness she constantly exert and with her top lively tennis skills, Maria truly remains  the tennis player of the highest caliber and the athlete of the most respected stature. Not only she possesses a sharply accurate focus, she is also a magical combination of  unmatched power, speed and elegance.

Maria has truly implanted in the hearts of the people all over the world a genuine and sincere love for the game of tennis. Tomorrow Maria will play the final match of the Australian open, and the whole world will be watching her challenging perfectionism.   

Jacob Sifri

Arab Bank, the leading bank in Jordan, was recently downgraded by Standard and Poor’s to a lower level. This literally means the bank is no longer a global one and clearly implies that its financial performance is deteriorating. The significance of this decision is it shatters the bank’s public perception and consequently it deprives it from attracting a share in the upper market segments, which mainly constitute of major reputable firms who only deal with banks of the strongest financial standing and highest stature.

According to S&P, the Jordanian government is now being endangered by a sovereignty peril; Standard and Poor’s are saying that Jordan is no longer a sovereign country as it used to be 10 years ago and as such it can not take any political, economic or social decisions independently without referring to these falsified creditors, as the decision making process is now fully centralized in their hands i.e. World Bank, IMF, European Commission, etc. This is the primary reason for which we need to halt all projected nuclear power reactors, cross country speed trains, new airports and ports or else we are completely finished; the astronomic costs of these unnecessary projects is not only our sovereignty and dignity, it is our existence. By the time these projects are finalized, we will be completely owned by our creditors and eventually we have to obey whatever orders they give us no matter how disgraceful these are; they would even turn our youngsters into porn stars and prostitutes whether or not we disagreed on that.

The question that arises now is where will the government bring money from to pay for the daily activities of the regime? Obviously it has to continue borrowing from the creditors, at the unreasonably inflated prices and terms they dictate, simply because it can’t take those crucial decisions it needs to procure a fast recovery. And since we are now deeply drowned in the swamp of debt, we will neither regain our sovereignty nor our dignity until this external “fraudulent“ debt is completely eradicated, no matter what are the means the society chooses to delegitimise and wipe it off.

If this situation is analyzed in details, one would realize the magnitude of this huge conspiracy against the people and would understand the reasons why the regime has committed a grave unforgivable crime against the nation when it decided to accumulate those rather imaginary loans; The lives of the millions that were completely wasted under the intolerable burden of debt, running behind fraudulent invoices in a society where they are deprived of the right to pursue their own personal aspirations, and whilst they are enslaved in poverty and injustice under a totally corrupt regime which is controlled by an evil power upholding crime, racism, favoritism and materialism as a self engraved ideology and a way of life they can‘t deviate from.

95% of the loans granted to people in this country, and many other countries, are illegitimate and the exhaustive pricing represents solid grounds to completely write off these loans, especially they also act as an unbreakable barrier and an obstacle to increase economic productivity and to improve social conditions.

We are now a dying nation, and it won’t be long before we loose every thing we have if the current political status quo remained the same. What is happening, and has happened in the past, is the sheer responsibility of the regime and its figures who determinably created this environment to facilitate and hide their crimes, failures and omissions.

The past can’t simply be forgotten, those who were responsible for the pain and agony suffered by the innocent children, men and woman must bear the full responsibility for their wrongful or criminal acts. Furthermore, there is a large number of filthy rich figures who made their fortunes illegally and therefore must be put on trial especially those involved in the banking sector who have been producing fake financial statements and facilitating money laundering transactions.

The past can not be forgotten, even if the previous mistakes were unintentional, why? Think about it this way, if I robbed $2million from a bank’s vault, the bank will lose $2million. And if I negligently placed the vault’s combination and keys beside the vault and a thief used these to steal the $2 million dollars then the bank will also loose $2million. In both cases I’m liable because the consequences of my theft or my negligence are the literally the same, although the level of liability may slightly vary.

When a president directly orders children out of school or when he looses the money allocated for these children over a game of poker, in both cases the children will not go to school and as a result their lives will be wasted, now we can’t say the president is innocent and he is a decent revolutionist, can we?

There is absolutely no such thing as the fortunes of the royal family; the principle of conflict of interest applies here. The royal family can easily use its influence and power to generate these vast fortunes it possesses, hence a big question mark on the legitimacy of these fortunes!

In 1987 when the Dinar value vastly dropped against foreign currencies, many people left schools, the streets were filled with the unemployed, poverty stroke most of the houses and elderly people invaded the pavements begging for bread. The recession was the direct result of corruption, nevertheless, the corrupt, as always, evaded liability and they continued to widen their net of corruption and diversify their criminal activities to include porno and drugs on much wider scales. Today you can order a woman online and pay with your credit card, she will come to you wherever you are, you can even chose her age, her nationality, her color or the type of service you like and she doesn‘t have a say so on her destiny; if she resisted, they would even harm her. If this is not the most horrifying enslavement crime, I don’t know what is.

The question that jumps to mind, why don’t the government arrest those criminals responsible for destroying these women and children? I mean if the secret intelligence can hear what you say to your wife in bed at two o’clock in the morning, they surely can arrest some filthy human merchants. So why is our government doing nothing about it, may be because they are in the heart of it. No one can say the monarch has nothing to do with it, of course he has every thing to do with it. The rule is, that who holds the authority, also bears the full responsibility. I’ve been researching these porno sites and it is obvious that organized crime is in the heart of it. They use the starving children in the streets over a life time journey as merchandise to sell for money in the most humiliating and undignified imaginable manner.

Every year, we are encountering new scandals and witnessing changes in the laws, which originally meant to protect the people, to protect the perpetrators of these scandals instead, whilst the rich are getting richer and the debts are increasing; The country is now slipping away from us unless of course we continue our revolution and make sure to tell those in charge of our regime that all the deals they transacted in the past, for which they’re responsible, are illegal and they have to face justice no matter how immune they think they are. The revolution can not die because people don’t die.

Jacob Sifri

Wins 5-0

Only if we didn’t have so much money in Jordan, things would have been less infuriating. But because we too have those filthy rich 1%, we’re not at all happy about it. In here there isn‘t any legit Steve Jobs offering widely demanded products. I know for a fact that the vast majority of the rich are not entitled to their fortunes and in one way or another have acquired them illegally. But what does “illegally” mean these days; even the laws that protected people from exploitation were totally changed. Now they can rip us off in any manner that pleases them without worries as they own the police force, the judges, the military and even have their own personal guards.

Today, notable economists unambiguously confirm there can never be a recovery from the current economic crisis if there isn‘t a radical change in each and every aspect of the political power encapsulating our lives right now, including the power of corporations. This means, unless there is an instant change, we the common people will continue to shed blood every time one of our children is sold in parts or sold in full or whenever one of our daughters is raped by a sick contemptible criminal. 

Sadly, there are still decent honorable Romneys who seriously believe that “corporations are good for people“. May be because they solely think in terms of budgets and profit maximization strategies to create large controllable cash pools that can be freely used in times of force majeure. The reason why a direct profit maximization strategy of any corporation always has a destructive impact on the economy is that it gradually destroys market forces by significantly reducing the money supply in the market. This eventually leads to higher inflation, increasingly higher unemployment rates and lower standard of living. Whilst there will always be astronomic cash balances preserved in a limited number of accounts with investment fund managers, global custodians and commercial banks, the patterns of consumer consumption will significantly change leaving people in deteriorating poverty levels.

Over the long years during which corporations have applied their profit maximization strategies, people all over the world were forced to borrow from banks at high interest rates to meet their various needs. This personal debt had enormous economic cost and is gradually destroying those societies moaning under it.

Because Economics is the science that primarily measures REAL VALUES, including the value of labour and output, the economic cost of indebted people is huge since it also includes the value of lost output that would have been produced had the labour force, suffocated by their loans, been in a healthier psychological and social environment. The opportunity cost here is significant. Put simply, huge cash balances concentrated in several accounts yield far much less returns than the proceeds generated from the same balances had these been redistributed across the population in well structured mechanisms. Because many of the methods employed in gathering these huge cash pools could be illegal, and because of its severe negative impact on the society in its entirety, people have every right to redistribute this wealth in the manner that best preserves their national interest and serves their social or religious aspirations. The main rule: whatever is encompassed by the geographic boundaries of a nation must be deployed in the best interest of its common people.

Corporations have not drawn their strategies in compliance with the national laws of the society they targeted. To the contrary, they have frequently adopted illegal, and sometimes criminal methods, to confiscate the natural resources of several countries hence leaving the indigenous inhabitants in severe poverty.

The problem with national debt the corporations always place countries under does not only lie in the fact that it suffocates people suffering the huge burden of debt and consequently deprives them of their dignity and humanity, but it also subjects the indebted country to the truly affrighting danger of DENATIONALIZATION. This now means every thing within the geographic boundaries, including the nationals themselves, will become the assets of the creditors “predators” if and when the nation can not pay back the installments of its national debt; the debt that was accumulated fraudulently through out the long years by deceiving decent successive authoritative figures and politicians, including the Romneys themselves. The sovereignty risk which arises from inability to repay debts is huge here, especially that the creditors are determined to prevent us, the indebted people, from getting rid of those evil glutinous liabilities.

The Americans, those wonderful magnificent indefinable heroes, have chosen their way, and their sacred choice is irreversible. It represents the real source of righteousness, beauty and goodness. They have determinably occupied the streets they own in a proud proclamation of their love to their America and their willingness to sacrifice the most precious of their belongings in serving and protecting it; their readiness to give their lives for the homeland that has always embraced them; this same sacred land which over the years has also given the world more than we can all repay.

Because their mission of liberating their country, and ours, is truly sacred, each and every one of us have a duty to prevent or disobey any regulations or orders which may cause any sort of harm to these street demonstrators. They represent the hope our humanity has been aspiring since inception and they will not retaliate until they liberate us all.

America is in our hearts too, we will not hesitate to protect it with our lives and souls. Occupy the world if you want, and we will bow to you.

Jacob Sifri

Mr. Newt Gingrich strongly supports israel and explicitly undertakes to protect it at all costs. I think this is because he honestly believes that the ancient history of the Jews in Palestine grants them a historic right to establish a form of separate independent political existence.

The current free masonry, an ideological extension of zionism, also supports this view and calls for rebuilding the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem within the artificial boarders of israel. Thus, the zionists and masons can not accept the notion "Christians, Muslims and Jews living together in peace" so the peace process in its entirety is delusional and Mr. Gingrich is right about that.

In modern history, israel was created in 1914 by order of a British Minister named Balfour who simply assigned part of Palestine to the Jews and it became israel. Since that time, the low israelis have violated every single human right and broke every law by mercilessly torturing and killing the innocent Palestinians in addition to confiscating their homeland. The crimes committed by the low zionists are truly horrendous .

This is an article of Cheryl Ruhenberg, former associate professor of political science, Florida International University, and editor of the Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (3 volumes), 2010, introducing the book of Jonathan Schneér which addresses the Balfour Declaration and the illegal reversible process by which the state of israel was established.

"In his extraordinary book The Balfour Declaration, Jonathan Schneér provides an indepth look at the process by which the document that birthed the State of Israel came about and situates it in the whole of British Middle East policy during World War I. Thus he pays close attention throughout to British relations with the Arabs, including the circumstances and controversies surrounding the 1914-15 Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, which included the Damascus Protocol and which the Arabs were led to believe included Palestine; the course of the Arab Revolt; the roles of Sharif (later King) Hussein of Mecca and his sons Feisal, Abdullah and Ali; as well as the progress of T. E. Lawrence and his Bedouin troops. The Arabs never knew about Britain's conspiracy with France or about the Balfour Declaration and remained loyal and committed to Britain during rhe whole of the war.

At the same time, Schneer closely analyses the relationship between Britain and its wartime ally France, including the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, which envisioned an international condominium administering Palestine and the carving up of the remainder of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire between France and Britain in classic imperialist style. On the other hand, Britain secretly hoped to exclude France from the Middle East altogether.

After the Bolshevik revolution, Moscow pulled Russia out of the war and canceled all its wartime treaties and commitments. Britain secretly negotiated with Russia to keep it in the war by promising Moscow control of Istanbul and the Dardanelles. London failed to apprise Paris of this promise.

The Zionist movement in Britain is covered in detail, and we learn that the great majority of British Jews were "assimtlationist" and therefore anti-Zionist. Led by Lucien Wolf, who came to dominate the Conjoint Committee of the Anglo-Jewish Association and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Wolf and his colleagues (especially Claude Montefiore and Edwin Montagu) worked tirelessly to influence British policy against establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Their position denied the existence of Jewish nationality, and they sought assistance from Britain to ensure the rights of Jews in whatever country they lived. They also wanted Britain to pursue a separate peace with the Ottomans.

Chaim Weizmann became Britain's leading advocate of Zionism and played a crucial role in bringing about the Balfour Declaration. Together with Nahum Sokolow and Walter Rothschild, and to a lesser extent Harry Sacher, these few men managed to gain support of a slight majorty of British Jews as well as critical persons in the British government, for example, Herbert Samuel, Arthur Balfour and later Sir Mark Sykes. Samuel is an especially interesting character (among a plethora of fascinating men). A wealthy assimilated Jew (part of what Schneer defines as the "Cousinhood"), initially he had little interest in Zionism. After meeting Weitzmann, his interest grew, and he facilitated contact between Weitzmann and important British officials. He personally felt constrained from public advocacy; he was both a Jew and a member of the cabinet. After the war, he served for five years as Britian's first High Commissioner in Palestine.

Weizmann, more than any other individual, orchestrated the wartime campaign for British support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. As such, the question arises, where did he receive his influence and power? It came mainly from Weizmann 's perfecting a process for fermenting acetone from grain rather than wood (Schneer mentions this much on p. 155, but little more), to be used in the manufacture of explosives. During World War I, acetone was in short supply in Britain, and this new synthetic material produced by Weizmann went a long way in helping the British win the war. That the prestige he gained from this important discovery would surely translate into political power seems relevant and significant. Schneer does not make this connection.

There was another actor vying for Palestine: the Committee of Union and Progress of the Ottoman Turks. Britain had long sought to conclude a separate peace with the Ottomans and was prepared to make important concessions. During 1917 and 1918, secret meetings took place with Ottoman representatives. Britain was prepared to permit a Turkish flag to fly over Palestine as well as over Greater Syria and Mesopotamia, though with Britain running the countries. Schneer writes:

To detach the Ottomans from the Central Powers would do more to win the war for Britain than anything connected to Arabs or Jews .... Eventually, through his emissaries, Lloyd George offered the Turks, among other inducements, that their flag continues to fly over Palestine if they would make a separate peace, even as other British officials were promising Zionists and Arabs that the Ottomans and their flag would be expelled from the Middle East altogether. In the end Enver Pasha [one of a triumvirate who ruled the Ottoman Empire 1913-18] spurned Lloyd George's offer. Nevertheless, it seems right to suggest that Palestine was not thrice-promised. It was promised, or at any rate dangled as bait, four times: before the Zionists and the Arabs, before Picot by Sykes in the shape of an as-yet-unformed international consortium, and before the Turks, who would otherwise lose it as a result of war (p. 368).

We shall return to the evolution of the Balfour Declaration, but so overwhelming is the sense after reading this book of British duplicity, deceit, double-dealing, obfuscation, ambiguity and back-stabbing in its relations with all the parties involved that one feels it necessary to highlight it. One example will suffice:

They [Weizmann and colleagues] did not realize that a year previously [1916] Sykes and Picot had agreed precisely to international control of Palestine as a whole, the so-called Brown Area except for the British corridor running east-west and the northern slice that would go to France. Herbret Samuel, who had been a member of the cabinet when the Sykes-Picot Agreement was made, knew of this plan but was bound by cabinet oath not to speak of it. The meeting on February 7 [19.17], then, was based upon at least three layers of deceit. In the first layer Sykes was attempting to undermine an agreement with France that he (and Herbert Samuel) knew the British government had already accepted, that he himself had helped to negotiate, and that bore his name. In the second layer, Sykes and Samuel both were keeping the Sykes-Picot and Tripartite Agreements secret from everyone else at the meeting. From his French contacts James de Rothschild had gained some inkling of them. Twice he asked Sykes to confirm that Britain had made no promise of Palestinian territory to France. The first time Sykes replied that "no pledges had been given to the French concerning Palestine," an outright lie . . . The second time he referred the question to Samuel: "Mr Samuel replied that he could not reveal what had been done by the cabinet" (p. 198).

Britain herself wanted Palestine. London believed that, by controlling Palestine, it could better secure the Suez Canal and maintain the puppet monarchy it had installed in Cairo.

The British government issued the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917, but until six months before that date and even up to the very day of its announcement, its existence was uncertain. Until the very end, Lucien Wolf and his followers remained staunchly anti-Zionist and pressed the Foreign Office hard. Their position continued to be emancipation and assimilation for Jews everywhere as well as opposition to the proposal "to give to the Jews of Palestine privileges not shared by the rest of the population of that country" (p. 306). The debate between the two British Jewish communities continued in The Jewish Chronicle, The Times and a variety of other forums. The publication of Zionism and the Jewish Future by Harry Sacher in late 1916 contributed mightedly to shifting the position of some assimilationists, but it was a bitter struggle. A vote taken in the Conjoint Committee in the fall of 1917 gave the Zionists 56 mandates to 51 for the assimilationists, signaling the end of the latter 's influence.

Potential problems came from another source. T.E. Lawrence and his Bedouin fighters encountered numerous unexpected and disabling factors as they planned to take Damascus. While the Zionists in London moved during the spring and summer of 1917 to assert control over British Jewry and to influence the Foreign Office, the Arabs pushed north from Wejh to Aqaba, intending to move on to Syria and claim their homeland. Schneer asks: "Had they reached Damascus before November 2, 1917, it is an interesting point whether the British would have felt confident enough about the future ofthat territory to release the Balfour Declaration" (p. 325). Near the end of October, Gaza fell, but not until November 30 were the Arabs able to penetrate Syria - three weeks too late for Arab interests to prevail. Of course, they knew nothing of the Balfour Declaration.

In mid-summer 1917, the Zionists wrote a paragraph that they wanted the Foreign Office to adopt and announce as policy:

(1) His Majesty's Government accepts the principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as the National Home of the Jewish people. (2) His Majesty's Government will use its best endeavors to secure the achievement of this objective and will discuss the necessary methods and means with the Zionist Organization (p. 335).

It is of note here that the first sentence implies an unbroken link between Jews and Palestine despite a nearly 2,000-year separation, while the second sentence posits the Zionist Organization as the official representative of all Jewish interests. Needless to say, the British did not accept this formulation.

Indeed, both the Foreign Office and the War Cabinet were split and undecided about how to proceed. Weizmann then mobilized American support, including American Zionists and non-Zionists and President Woodrow Wilson (who was influenced by Louis Brandeis and other prominent Zionists) and who had just brought the United States into the war on the side of Britain and France. Wilson sent a strong letter of support. As a result, Weizmann had access to virtually every cabinent official, and the Declaration was shortly released. But British deceit and double dealing continued.

This is such an outstanding book that one is reluctant to point out errors and omissions, but it seems dishonest not to do so. The author mentions that there were "Shiite Muslims" and "Sunni-Shiite conflict" in Palestine (p. 9). However, historically or contemporaneously there were never any Shia in Palestine. When writing about conflict in the country (p. 9), it would have been relevant and accurate to mention the inter-hamula (clan) strife. He writes, "There were as well Druze and other Christians . . ." (p. 5). Druze are not Christians; they are a schismatic religion said to have begun as an offshoot of Islam but unique in its incorporation of Gnosticism, neoplatonism and other philosophies, similar to other followers of Ismaili Shia Islam. Further, in Jerusalem Schneer writes, "[with] Mecca-bound Muslim pilgrims, . . .residents did brisk business selling supplies, services, and trinkets typically of olive wood and mother-of-pearl" (p. 7). This is probably a true statement, but Schneer fails to mention that in all likelihood, the majority would have prayed at al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. The whole first chapter (pp. 3-31) has a condescending, almost derogatory tone in its analysis of the social and economic life of Palestinians before the British arrived.

With regard to the Jewish holy cities in Palestine, Schneer writes: "Earlier in the nineteenth century it had been mainly elderly Jews who immigrated to Palestine. . . . They were seeking ... to end their lives in the holy land. These pathetic figures could be seen, ill-clad and malnourished, begging for alms in the streeets of Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias and Safed" (p. 1 0). This hardly gives the holy cities their due as centers of spiritual learning. Safed came to be regarded as a holy city after an influx of Jews from Spain following their expulsion in 1492, and became known as a center of kabbalistic scholarship, a mystical/spiritual branch of Judaism. Tiberias was significant in Jewish history as the place where the Jerusalem Talmud was composed and as the home of the Masoretes (mostly Karaite scribes and scholars), but its status as a holy city is due to the influx of rabbis who established the city as a center for Jewish learning in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Mr. Schneer repeatedly calls Weitzmann a "folks-mensch" (Yiddish for "man of the people"), but he was not one. Indeed, his elegant lifestyle and cultivated manners were a handicap to him in a movement increasingly dominated by the working class.

A topic that Schneer completely overlooks but that most definitely played a role in the realization of the Balfour Declaration is Christian Zionism. This is a literal belief in the biblical prophecy that the Jews must return to their ancestral home in order for the Second Coming of Christ to occur. Christian Zionism was born in Britain and has been widely influential there. British leaders such as Lord Balfour, Herbert Samuel, Lloyd George and others (including much earlier Lord Shaftesbury) mingled British imperialism with their belief in the need to restore the Jews to their home.

One final criticism, which can be relegated to the category "that is not what the book is about": The author repeatedly (some 15 times) mentions together the Armenians and the British. Yet he never tells us who the Armenians are, why Britain is concerned about them, what it has promised to do for them, the genocide and so on - all of which could have been done in one paragraph and relieved a sense of void.

Despite these errors and omissions The Balfour Declaration is a masterful work of research and analysis. 1 highly recommend it to everyone interested in British policy in World War I and the origins of the Balfour Declaration.

The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, by Jonathan Schneer. Random House, 2010. 433 pages plus glossary, maps and index. $30.00, hardcover.

H.E. Mohammed Ahmad Mustafa al Dabi the Chief Executive of The Arab League Committee in Syria declares the Syrian government innocent of killing its citizens and assures no civil war in Syria

Today all countries around the world submissively concede to the “rule of law ”, and consciously avoid the application of the so called “rules of practice“. This is because every economy has its own distinctive commercial features which entail specific, thorough and vigorous practices to guarantee the sound processing of legitimate transactions only whilst preserving the rights of the various parties to these transactions. As such, legal systems continue to enact meticulous commercial codes to regulate every single aspect of all types of commercial contracts, including import and export deals.  See Sub-article 16 f of the UCP600 and the case of BankAzaro.

Depicted by the term itself, “Standard Banking Practice” is an illustration of a set of “standard” or “general” indicative rules which would hardly be acceptable to modern day banks who normally adopt intricate strategic plans specifically set to differentiate their individually distinctive cultures, products and processes by value-added elements privately tailored to customize all corporate, personal and trade solutions. Thus, the terms “Standard Practice” and “Rules of Practice” are inherently ruinous and completely delusional.

Because standardizing processes on a global or even regional scale is a practical impossibility, large banks have their own bylaws, internal regulations, and instruction manuals professionally set by their risk executives to suit their own unique requirements. These banks not only account for all sort of perils, they actually foresee the dangers that may arise from the various risks they confront and take all necessary measures to protect themselves from consequential potential damages. These banks perfectly control, in a systematic manner, the various procedures pertained to each type of transactions the bank undertakes.

Recent cases around the world have proven that the application of said informal rules of practice on international trade deals has led to an unprecedented proliferation of fraud cases and money laundering transactions; organized crime has flourished and is rapidly spreading all over the world drastically worsening the global economic crises only because the so called “rules of practice” has actually created an environment conducive to omitting placement of effective operational controls to halt illegitimate and erroneous transactions (see Sub-article 7 c of the UCP600 and definition of the term “Negotiation” in Article 2 of the UCP600).

The reason for the deteriorating performance of banks which applied said “informal” rules, is that the rules implicitly, and explicitly indeed, encouraged financial institutions not to undertake those vital protective operational measures needed to ensure that the transactions they process are in fact legit. Additionally, the rules urged banks to merely check the documents presented such that they “only appear” to be in order and conform to the requirements of the letter of credit instrument. The dilemma lies in the fact that banks are indemnified from any legal responsibility if these apparently accurate documents turned to be forged or fraudulent (see Articles 4, 5 of the UCP600). This is completely deceptive, because the social responsibility of any bank far transcends any legal liability; A bank involved, intentionally or negligently, in a money laundering transaction would bear huge damages even if it managed to escape the judicial liability. And it may well collapse regardless of its size; the maxim “too big to fail“ doesn‘t apply in such situations.

Fiddling around, in a rather negligent manner, with terms like “on its face”, “reasonable time”, “reasonable care”, “honour“, “negotiation” and the like whilst totally ignoring several interrelated aspects of the transaction such as credit legitimicy, organized crime, languages, disparity of operations, linkage, national marine practices, maturity dates, drafts, dynamic risk elements, etc may well place the issuers of these rules under legal liability.

The ICC, knowing that they were being trusted, that their skills were being relied upon and that their judgment is occasionally referenced authoritatively, must be held responsible for all the errors and mistakes contained in the UCP600 and any other rules of practice sanctioned by them, especially that they themselves, together with the “Institute of International Banking Law and Practice – IIBLP” are promoting these erroneous rules.”

The globally unified rules of practice can hardly form any sort of legacy; Be it rules for international trade, reimbursements, guarantees, collections, arbitration, fraud, corruption detection etc, these rules truly endanger the institutions applying them by totally ignoring several vital facets of any transaction, implicitly protect organized crime and harm the economy in which they are applied; It is only the national laws and internal bylaws that provide exemplary protection for all parties of a commercial deal.

Banks today are required to inaugurate their own specific "complete" rules and structure their operations so that they would be able to eradicate any money laundering and fruadulent transactions; relying on "rules of practice" is simply destructive. Thus, it is much safer to remove all indications to such rules from the issued commercial and financial instruments, for example "This LC is subject to UCP600" can be replaced by a phrase "The LC is subject to the prevailing national commercial law". 

The operational correlation between the trade services division and trade finance departments can best be explored by reading our new Book "Corporate Banking Credit".

Respectfully;

Jacob E. Sifri, AR LSE   CDCS
Senior Credit Consultant and Trainer
www.graincon.com
J. Sifri Consulting Services