THE CUTTING OF SWORDS

The sword was, and remains, a powerful symbol of civilization and social order:

·         The sword was one of the earliest images accessible to us of the light in man; his inborn weapon for conquering ignorance and darkness without.

Laurens van der Post - 'The Sword and the Doll'

·         Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of all England.

Thomas Malory - Morte d'Arthur

·         Nevertheless, it is logical to speak of martial arts in specific reference to the long sword because society and individuals are both ordered by way of the powers of the long sword.

Miyamoto Musashi

Right from the beginning there was an arms race to produce the deadliest sword:

The sickle sword, the Egyptian khopesh, (the word means the foreleg of an animal), was introduced into Egypt around 1400 BCE and rapidly spread throughout the Middle East.  It was the preferred weapon of Israel from the time of Joshua. And they struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire. (Judges 18:27) The sickle-sword had a shape very much like an ordinary sickle with a blade about forty centimeters long. It was about five to ten centimeters wide with the cutting edge on the outside making it ideal for slashing.  The handle was for a one-handed or two-handed grip and sometimes up to a meter long.  There seems to be no consistent format for the sword with the only common feature the sickle shape. This indicates these weapons were individually tailored and constantly adapted by a variety of sword-smiths in a constant search for the ultimate design. 

The sword was, and remains, a presence in human mythology:

In the olden days there were 'magic' swords and from them came the legends. But there was no magic, the swords were real and made according to the rules of science - and a good dollop of skill or 'art'. What made them seem supernatural was the ability to cut through any armor (of the time) and they got sharper the more they were used. The sword of Apollonius described in I Maccabees 3: 12 must have been one of them. (Wherefore Judas took their spoils, and Apollonius' sword also, and therewith he fought all his life long.)

The problem for the ancient sword-smith making a 'magic' sword was firstly to find a suitable metal. Copper and bronze was too soft to take a good edge and the available iron was unsuitable due to impurities.  The answer to the problem of impure iron was meteorites where the impurities had been burnt off. This is where the 'swords from heaven' myths started. In Anatolia, swords were made from meteorite iron in 3000 BCE and by 2 500 BCE it was common practice in Egypt. The ancient Greeks valued it greatly as can be seen from Homer's description in 'The Iliad' where  Achilles stopped them and told them all to sit down in a wide ring where the sports were to be held.  For these he brought out prizes from the ships - cauldrons and tripods, horses, mules and sturdy cattle, grey iron, and women in their girdled gowns. Meteorite iron remained the best source for sword-making steel until 1890.

The second problem for the sword-smith was the increased brittleness if air-cooled after forging. Everyone else tried quenching their swords in the blood of seven virgins but the ancient Greeks solved this problem by using oil. This small technological lead gave them the 'edge' and led to further advances.

By 500 BCE, meteorite iron had become a great scarcity and almost impossible to find. The Greeks solved the problem of impurities by folding, hammering and refolding the iron ore endlessly at high temperatures - the impurities were literally hammered out. An additional benefit of this method was a sword made out of thousands of layers - greater flexibility made it less prone to snapping.  By using an incredibly clever double furnace, they introduced carbon into the iron to produce a 3% carbon steel - higher than modern steel at 1%. This gave it durability and a constantly sharpening keen blade. The result was the kopis - a terrifying weapon with a single edge used for slashing and with it they conquered the world. 

NOTE: Everywhere Alexander the Great went on his conquest, archeological remains of this furnace has been found.

After Alexander, the Greeks lost the 'secret' and reverted to short swords as did the Romans and most of the rest of the world. The secret of the kopis remained hidden in India and vanished in the smoke of legend. Many centuries later it re-emerged and the steel became known as 'Damascus steel' - it was finished and marketed to Arabs (Muslims) only through the Syrian city of Damascus.  The superior quality of these swords was already acknowledged in Europe in 1430 when Bertrandon de la Brocquière wrote, as to its temper, it is perfect; and I have nowhere seen swords that cut so excellently but he warns that export was strictly controlled and buying one was risky - the swords were often tested on prospective Western buyers. 

Besides being a symbol and part of mythology, the sword was first and foremost, a weapon:

Since Egyptian times it was known the best swords were curved but working with steel in the many layers and producing a curve was very difficult and the method was kept secret. 

NOTE: The Crusaders had straight swords not because they thought it looked like the cross or because they did not realize the superiority of the Saracen scimitars - they did not know how to make a curved sword. 

The curved sword is as good a stabbing weapon as a straight sword and is superior for instant killing as the point can be curled upwards with a low stab to the lungs and heart. 

As a slashing weapon, it has two great advantages over the straight sword. The curved sword stays stable in the air during the slash and hits the target with the cutting edge.  When a fast slash is made with a straight sword, the blade twists because of the physics involved and this is transferred to the hilt-attachment which is the weakest part of the sword, as well as the gripping hand.  If the blade twists the target is hit with the flat of the blade.  The harder the slash, the more the torque, and the more impossible it becomes to control the sword.

A sharp point penetrates a surface easier than a blunt one does. This is stating the obvious. As obvious is that a curved blade penetrates easier than a straight blade, if the same pressure is applied - as there is less contact surface.  (It is the same reason stiletto heeled shoes damage a floor easier than flat shoes.) The curved sword therefore not only stays stable in the   

The sword became more than a weapon when it became a way of life:

The Japanese tried to copy the Damascus sword but could not get the curve right.  They managed to get a slight curve as is seen in the katana but when they tried to increase the curve, the blade broke easily. So they stayed with the almost straight sword and solved the problem of torque with a two-handed hilt - it allowed for a stronger attachment and a better grip as in a golf club. But like the golf club, Japanese swords were developed for sport - duels with strict rules and killing unarmed peasants.  It did not originate on the battlefield where a shield was essential - a two handed grip in war was a laughable idea. They soon realized the shortcoming. When you have a bow or a spear in your left hand, or whatever other weapon you are wielding, in any case you use the long sword with one hand; therefore, to wield the long sword with both hands is not the true way.  . . .  (Miyamoto Musashi)

The Japanese solved the problem in a truly Japanese manner - when the weapon cannot be improved, improve the man. To solve the problem of torque the sword is swung with a slower stroke to prevent twisting and then drawn towards the body of the wielder so the blade cuts in the same manner a steak is cut. It is all in the 'draw' or 'pulling in'.   The idea is to swing the sword calmly, so that it is easy to do.  When you try to swing a long sword fast, the way you might when using a fan or a short sword, you deviate from the 'way' of the long sword, so it is hard to swing.  That is called "short sword mincing" and is ineffective for killing a man with a long sword.  (Miyamoto Musashi) To get this right took a lifetime of dedicated physical and mental training. It was called 'the way' and only a handful of people ever achieved it to a level usable on a battlefield.

GODDESSES OF WAR

The goddesses encountered by the Israelites when they settled in The Land originated with Asherah who was the wife of El the chief god of Canaan. She was accepted as 'Queen of Heaven' who is spoken of in Jeremiah (burn incense to the queen of heaven) and can be regarded as a consort rather than a goddess with her own functions.

Years later, the word 'asherah' (plural - asherim) no longer referred to a specific goddess but it started to mean all the trappings of the worship of the goddesses (and sometimes the gods) and it included the priests, altars and groves. The asherah was also the fetish statues - reclining or standing nudes, and phallic stones or poles. Asherah could also be the coerced act of sacred prostitution by male and female prostitutes. (The women had to make the choice between having their hair shaved or offering service in the ‘temple’.)

The original rather passive goddess Asherah metamorphosed into a wide variety of goddesses with different functions. From military perspective, the warrior class of goddesses is of particular interest. These would be deities like:

• Anath - virgin/warrior goddess, sister of Baal and Astarte, defeater of death.
• Astarte - goddess of sexual love and war, sister of Anath but possibly not Baal.
• Ishtar - have power over bodily love and war, goddess of prostitutes and pubs.

As a group, they were called Ashtoreth and were utterly condemned in the Bible.

There seems to have been a common theme linking war and fertility, which originated in different countries at around the same time but there is an incredible logic to it - a reality which exists to this day.

The worship of gods and goddesses in the ancient world was based on logic and careful observation of what went on in the world and then deducing causes from this. It is the same as modern science where causes are deduced without being observed and then turned into dogmatic scientific ‘religion’.

After every war, there is a baby boom, an absolute population explosion - this we can observe and study. In the long-gone days of Canaan with its many wars and the Middle-Eastern practice of multiple rapes of the vanquished, it must have been far more pronounced - recent events in Bosnia proved this as well. Women with infertile husbands who went away suddenly bore children - as Bathsheba rather dryly pointed out to King David after their night of passion, I am with child. If fertility increases during war, then with seemingly perfect logic, the ancients deduced it had to be the goddess of fertility who caused the wars.

Historians do the same - they deduce causes which almost inevitably turn out to be wrong. This is not due to stupidity or maliciousness - it is being human, which means the inability of dealing with completely illogical or random events. Much of humanity holds the belief of creation being due to superhuman power or to a logical ('survival of the fittest' type) evolution - the God-fearing and atheist both want a beginning and end - and a logical reason for what happens in between. Humanity cannot deal with unpredictability. It wants to believe it can understand. Religious belief and secular ethics is after all, formulized wishful thinking - the linking together of random facts in a recognizable pattern. All this is nonsense and is no closer to the truth than a belief in goddesses of war.

Wars have no logical causes. This means, they cannot be prevented through belief in the inherent good of humanity or ethics (UN resolutions). And by the same token peace cannot be maintained with wishful thinking.

War will come to every single people, no matter what they do or do not do - it is only a matter of time. This is the only truth there is about war.

WHO OWNED JAFFA?

After the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, many questions have been asked about Arab refugees and land ownership. Jaffa provides an excellent case study to provide some insight into these vexing questions.

Before 1948, the biggest landowner in the Jaffa district was the government (the British under the mandate), followed by the churches, absentee (Turkish) owners, Jewish residents and lastly, Arab or Palestinian owners. When the United Nations gave Jaffa to a future Palestinian state, only the tenant majority of Arabs were considered. The reality of the majority of residents of Jaffa who owned their properties being Jewish, was ignored. As no compensation or protection was offered, the Jews with right could refuse to leave and ask for the protection of the newly formed Jewish state.

This situation came about because of the snowball effect on Palestinians, of the Ottoman land reform, of 1858:

• Some lost their land without even knowing they no longer owned it.
• Some gave their land as surety to unscrupulous moneylenders.
• 'Real estate agents' pretended to secure land and then secretly sold it to a third party.
• The village leaders were corrupt and took land for themselves.
• The average villagers did not understand the Turkish tax system and they gave their land into the 'protection' of the most powerful families who sold the land to the Jews.

Often, the duplicity wasn't discovered until the new owners drove them off their land and by then Palestinian society had become too fragile to hold people in the country. They had no reason to stay and the possibility of becoming caught up in a war, even one they had started, provided a strong self-preservation reason to leave. This they had done many times before - sometimes to return, sometimes to move to new countries within the Ottoman Empire. This 'wandering' has always been the way of the Middle East.

Before the land reform of 1858, the Turks had a complex system which they applied throughout the Empire. 

In Ottoman Palestine:

• The state was the major property owner inside the 'city walls' of the four official cities, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Tiberius and Safed - this was 'wakf' or endowment land. People lived in 'wakf' houses for generation after generation without paying rent - they paid 'tax' and this gave them the 'right' to a house.
• Land, outside but close to the walls of the cities, was 'mulek' or privately owned land. This valuable well-cultivated land of gardens, orchards and vineyards were mostly owned by absentee landlords or the churches. They charged rents, which were seldom paid. 
• In the countryside, all land was 'miri' or state owned and cultivated by taxable tenants. The tenant system had complicated user rights based on law, tradition and religion. Before the new laws came into being, most of the cultivatable land was allocated by the state to a group (family - 'village') who used the land as a collective land user, called a 'musha' but the state remained the owner. When land was no longer cultivatable, it reverted to the state and new land was allocated to the 'village'.

The 'musha' system destroyed farming and made it impossible for a tenant to make a profit because of ridiculous laws:

• No permanent improvements were allowed - like removing stones from a field or putting up a wall.
• It was illegal to plant trees - so no new olive groves, plantations or orchards for 300 years.
• Nobody owned land - it was all communal, so nobody really cared.
• Every year the land was reallocated - a bad farmer would get good land and a good farmer poor land.

The system is still being followed by some Arab farmers resulting in poor land development with the only viable Arab farming being the keeping of goats and sheep on the hills.  

In 1863, the 'musha' system was supposed to end and the land given to individual private owners. This only happened to a significant degree in Ramallah and Jerusalem. Everywhere else, the tenants were forced to bid for the land they lived on at open auctions. The villagers could not compete with speculators and lost their land. Tenants went from having permanent and hereditary rights to cultivate the land, to having nothing - Ottoman law did not recognize squatter's rights.

Before 1880, the area southeast of Jaffa was virtually unpopulated. Along the southern shore, there were only uninhabited sand dunes. The Arabs in this area was subsistence farmers living in mud huts or nomads who appeared from time to time. The land they farmed on and regarded as their own, because they never paid rent, was owned by absentee landlords in Turkey or Christians in Jaffa. The owners were more than happy to sell to the Jews. It was here the six major Jewish colonies in the Jaffa area were established. They had contracts to deliver grapes to the winery in Zichron Ya'akov and it was grapes which got them through the hard times. The Arab farmers had no equivalent system and were powerless when disaster struck.

The Arabs had a deep respect for Baron Rothschild and while the Jews were under his protection, they were safe from attack. He was fair in his dealings with all groups and ensured that on his properties the Arabs enjoyed job security. In 1899, the Baron transferred his business interests and land ownership to the local Jews. The Arabs started losing their jobs and financial hardship spread. This was exacerbated when in 1903, the Jewish owners of land refused to renew contracts with the Arab tenants who in some cases had worked the land for generations - but without paying rent.

The Arabs had no support system to get them through hardships like the 1915 locust plague. Their only option was to take loans with their land as guarantees or sell.

In 1908, the Arabs were on the wrong side of history when the Jewish Poale Zion supported the Young Turks in their revolution. The Arabs stayed loyal to the Sultans and Pashas who sold everything they could to the Jews, to finance their extravagant lifestyles.

Due to a severe financial crisis after WWI, the Greek Orthodox Church started selling its properties in British Palestine. It had lost the financial support of the 'Russian' church after the Bolshevik revolution and due to a world recession after WWI, pilgrim numbers dropped. The patriarch, Damianus I had no choice but to sell and the only willing buyer was the various Jewish groups. Amongst the Arab members of the Orthodox Church, there was an absolute fury and it is understandable because it was farms, industry and housing that was sold. The Arabs lost their employment as well as their homes to the Jews.

The British transferred rights to tenants where it was still possible to do so but the Palestinian leadership was too corrupt for this to work. Arab families like the Husseinis would swindle land from the peasants - who were not allowed to sell to the Jews under the threat of death. They would then sell the land (often knowingly) to middlemen who sold it to Jews and foreign investors. These families became incredibly wealthy and built themselves palaces like the original building that is now the American Colony Hotel.

The majority of Palestinians who became refugees in 1948 were landless. They had the keys to the house but not the title deeds and they had years of rent and taxes outstanding. More than anything, it was the fear of scrutiny which made Palestinians leave - both Jaffa and Israel. 

THE ORANGE AND THE SWASTIKA (AND ALI SALAMI)

The Jaffa orange has become a symbol for Palestinians of an idealistic past, of the better and wealthier life they imagined they had. This makes the Jaffa orange of some interest but it would have been noteworthy, both as a fruit and as a bit of history, in any case.

The courtyard of the Saint Nicholas Monastery on the waterfront of the Jaffa harbor is one of the oldest structures in Jaffa. Here, in the grounds of the Armenian Church Napoleon purportedly visited the victims of the plague. The monastery is no longer used and there are few Armenians left in Jaffa but their association with the town goes back to the Hellenistic period. Later, they, and not the Turkish rulers, were responsible for rebuilding Jaffa at the beginning of the 18th century.

Back then, the Armenians were a prosperous people and could afford to build and expand as they traded all across the Middle East. Armenian 'priests' went on 'missions' visiting their widely dispersed fellow countrymen. As well as spiritual comfort, they did some business as the line between trade and religion was blurred. When one such travelling priest from Saint Nicholas Monastery saw an orange with economical potential, he brought some pips home with him. It was the 'shamouti', which was already famous in 1519 in eastern Persia for being good to trade, because it travelled well. This was due to its thick skin - in general, all good travelers are thick skinned. It was not a particularly nice orange but it made long distance trade without cooling facilities possible.

The initial trees must have been a disappointment because the crop was a nasty little orange completely unlike the oranges the priest saw in Persia. Then one day, on one of the trees there was a branch with the good fruit. The 'shamouti' is a naturally occurring mutant - only the branch mutates, not the whole tree. This was great but nobody in Jaffa knew what to do about it.

Many years later, in 1868, a group of Germans turned up in Israel. They were a Christian breakaway group from the Lutheran Church who had particular ideas about the Messiah and they established communities in Haifa, Bethlehem in the Galilee and Jaffa. They called themselves 'Templars', bought a piece of land from the Greek Orthodox Church, and called it 'Sarona' from 'Sharon'. They were dirt poor and struggled to tame the land and overcome malaria. But they were quick to notice the branches with 'shaouti' oranges. These they grafted onto hardy trees, like the lemon and in no time at all, they were exporting and marketing oranges in Europe and as far as America. It was a true success story. They expanded their operations and bought land from all the Arabs around them. They became wealthy and employed thousands of Arabs who they brought in as cheap labor from Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. In their ears, they whispered anti Allied propaganda at the start of WWI.

The British took offense and shipped them to Egypt. Upon their return in 1920, they were furious with the British because their farms and homes had been ruined. They started spreading a strong anti British and anti Jews (especially the Bolsheviks) message amongst the Arabs. After Hitler came to power, the Nazi swastika flag flew over Sarona (and Haifa and Bethlehem) and they boycotted Jewish shops. When WWII started in 1939, some went back to Germany to join the Nazis. The rest were deported to Australia.

From the Templar communities of Palestine, 322 joined a 'special tasks' Nazi SS regiment. As a select group within the foreign Waffen SS (SSf) associated with the Amt VI (Foreign Intelligence Service), they formed the backbone of a unit carrying out small team missions across the Middle East. One such mission, 'Operation Atlas' was under the command of Colonel Kurt Wieland, a Templar from Sarona.

The objective of the mission was to have the Arabs attack Jews in Mandated Palestine in a variety of ways. The British would then have to send troops to defend the Jewish communities and so weaken their forces in Europe.

Wieland had a successful career in the Waffen SS and worked as a commando with Otto Skorzeny. With experience of small team operations in the Middle East and an understanding of the Arab situation and knowing the Jews of Israel, he must have known the mission was a load of rubbish.

The rest of his team consisted of two Arabs and two Germans. The Germans were both from Mandated Palestine and the Arabs were close confidants of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini. The notorious, Hassan Salami was one of them. Salami had commanded Palestinian forces during the 1936 uprising, fled, received training from the Iraqis, fought the British, and received paratrooper and commando training in Germany.

The unit was dropped on 6 October 1944 over Jericho and being a night-drop the altitude was incorrectly calculated and with strong winds the group and their equipment was scattered - as was the large amount of money they had with them to bribe the Arab leaders into the war. Hassan Salami, though injured in the drop, managed to get to Jerusalem and made contact with local leaders but without money, they weren't interested in him. He escaped as did one of the other Germans but Wieland made no moves except to surrender at the first opportunity.

Salami went into hiding and then turned up as the commander of the Mufti's forces (the 'Army of the Holy War') in Jaffa in 1947. He died in combat with the Israelis soon after.

Ali Salami, the son of Hassan Salami was 39 when the Mossad assassinated him in 1979. It was the final act of retaliation for the Munich Massacre. In the words of Ankie Spitzer who was left a widow by the Munich Massacre, It cannot be that people can terrorize other people and kill them - somebody has to pay a price. And somebody did.

 Ali Salami was born to substantial wealth in Jaffa. He received the best education at schools in Europe and was trained by the masters of terrorism in Moscow. In Fatah, he became Yasser Arafat's right hand man and head of 'Black September' - and organized and took part in horrific acts of terrorism. His honeymoon in Disneyland with a Miss Universe was a gift from the CIA - he fed them lies about the peaceful intentions of the PLO, which influenced US policy toward Israel. He was considered the best and most flamboyant terrorist in the world. But not even the best could escape the Israeli operation against the planners and executioners in the PLO - they were all eliminated, every single one - even Salami with his CIA contacts and protection. Like his father, Ali Salami, achieved nothing for the Palestinian people. He was a failure and towards the end of his life, a ridiculous figure.

In 1948, the Israeli army took over the Sharona property and paid compensation to the German families. The property was too valuable for an army to sit on so it was sold it to developers who created an up-market, outdoor indoor market with luxury shops and restaurants. It is nice.