# 155 – Another ‘Acadian Driftwood’ Tale

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Imperialism – From The Bottom Up

Edmund Burke (1729-1797), an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, politician, and founder of conservatism. Burke was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain. Burke is remembered for his long-term support for Catholic emancipation, his opposition to the French Revolution, and his support for the grievances of the American Thirteen Colonies under King George III.

Edmund Burke called the Acadian expulsion a textbook example of a dominant superpower abusing its authority by destroying a stable society rather than integrating peacefully. Burke believed that an empire’s right to rule was bound by moral restraint, justice, and the duty to preserve local communities, with absolutely no right to destroy them. For over 250 years, Edmund Burke’s assessment of imperial abuse still falls upon deft ears. This is a tragic story of family separation and resilience. 

Acadia  Port-Royal (1604-05) was the first permanent European and French settlement north of Florida. A French (Acadian) community that, over the course of the next six decades, was attacked, burned, and changed hands between the French and British several times. 

Jacques Bourgeois and Guillaume Trahan, Acadian pioneers, blood relatives, and direct ancestors, were recruited to build a community in the New World. Jacques Bourgeois and Guillaume Trahan became syndics des habitants, patriarchs from the core founding families elected by the town assemblies. 
 
Guillaume Trahan arrived as a tradesman (maréchal de tranchant), a master toolsmith and blacksmith specializing in edge tools: axes, knives, and agricultural blades. Guillaume rose from a skilled tradesman to one of the most trusted civic leaders.

In 1641, Jacques Bourgeois (c. 1621–1701), roughly 20 years old, a military surgeon, boarded a ship to Acadia bound for Port Royal. Jacques would become a merchant, shipbuilder, colonizer, and founder of the community of Beaubassin, from which our ancestors emanated.

The First Sirre/Cyr in America: In 1644, Jacques Bourgeois married Guillaume’s eldest daughter, Jeanne Anne Trahan. Jeanne gave birth to Marie, their fourth child. In 1652, Marie Bourgeois became our first relative born in North America. Marie married gunsmith Pierre Sirre/Cyr. Pierre, born in France, would be the patriarch of the North American Cyr/Sire lineage. 

Under British military occupation (1654-1667), all French immigration ceased; Acadians survived through farming and trade alliances with the Mi’kmaq Nation. The Treaty of Breda (1667) ordered the British to return Acadia to the French Crown, initiating new immigration of French tradesmen. Acadians in the New World numbered 400 people.

Pierre Sirre/Cyr (c. 1644–c 1679) traveled to Acadia around 1668. Pierre was a gunsmith and armorer (armurier). Recruited for his skills to maintain the tools required for hunting, fur-trading, and local militia defense. Within two years, he married Marie Bourgeois, Jacques Bourgeois’s daughter. By now, Bourgeois was a wealthy and influential surgeon-merchant.

Father-in-law Jacques Bourgeois established a highly lucrative commercial network with British merchants in Boston, exchanging Acadian furs and grain with New England captains. The 1671 census reflected his immense success as one of the wealthiest men in Port Royal, owning 33 head of cattle, 24 sheep, and extensive cultivated acreage.

Beaubassin -Where It Begins
In 1672, he sold a significant portion of his valuable real estate in Port Royal to finance a brand-new, independent settlement along the Chignecto Isthmus. Jacques brought along his sons, daughters, and son-in-law, Pierre Sire. There, they built the first flour mill and saw mill, in what would become the Acadian village of Beaubassin. 

Beaubassin grew from a lone frontier outpost in 1672 into a booming, independent economic powerhouse. By the 1740s, it became one of the most successful chapters in Acadian expansion. Beaubassin, due to its unique location on the Isthmus of Chignecto, transformed into a critical hub for both agriculture and international trade. The Cyr family became resident experts in the aboiteau diking and farming the reclaimed land. 

The Next Generations – Growth of the Sirre/Cyr 
Pierre Sirre, around 1679, passed, leaving his widow, Marie Bourgeois, with three small boys: Jehan, Jean Pierre, and Guillaume. She remarried in 1680. Her second husband, Acadian Germain Girouard, raised the boys in a combined household on the Bourgeois estate in Beaubassin. The brothers established new farms along the Chignecto Isthmus. 

Jean-Pierre (1677–1741) worked the family’s lands, operating as a primary agriculturalist and community elder. Jean-Pierre married Claire-Angélique Cormier (1684–1741), from another foundational Beaubassin family, deepening the family networks across Beaubassin. 

Jean-Pierre and Claire raised a massive household of at least 11 children. The boys in this household became expert aboiteau builders, expanding the family’s landholdings. Jean-Pierre and his wife Claire-Angélique died in 1741. The peaceful “Golden Age” of Acadia was about to end. Their deaths spared them from witnessing the destruction of the farms and community they and their family had built.

Their eldest son, Pierre Cyr (1711),  married Anne Poirier (January 1735). They took over the management of the family’s valuable, diked marshland estate in the core Beaubassin district. They were raising their children, including Jean (b. 1736),  Pierre Jr. (b. 1738), and Anne-Marie (b. 1740). Jean-Pierre and Claire left behind several younger children.  Pierre and Anne effectively became surrogate parents to his younger brothers and sisters while running the frontier farm.

In the defrocked Roman Catholic priest and author, Abbé Guillaume-Thomas-François Raynal’s (1770) book, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (The Philosophical and Political History of the Establishments and Commerce of Europeans in the Two Indies). In his book, he paints a picture of Acadia as an earthly paradise populated by simple, happy, and moral pastoral farmers. He emphasized their self-sufficiency, isolation from European corruption, and peaceful coexistence with indigenous populations. The work that follows validates Abbé Raynal’s conclusion that the greed, violence, and moral corruption of European colonial expansion led to the catastrophic destruction of Acadia.

Beaubassin – Caught In An Imperial War
The 1740’s ended the peaceful Golden Age of Acadia. Now a prominent community leader, Pierre had his entire world dismantled by a series of imperial wars between France and England. Beaubassin became a hegemonic battleground.

During King George’s War (1744–1748), Beaubassin became a highway for military activity. Throughout 1746 and 1747, French troops, Canadian militia, and Mi’kmaq allies billeted inside the homes of Beaubassin’s Acadian farmers. French troops and Mi’kmaq fighters from Quebec used Beaubassin as a staging ground to launch attacks against the British garrison at Annapolis Royal. From the British perspective, this forced action ruined the Acadians’ political neutrality.

Most Acadians, like Pierre (1711), maintained neutrality; however, French officers forced local farmers to provide livestock, wheat, and manual labor to feed the troops. Refusal meant French partisans would retaliate with raids on their farms. Compliance brought British authorities threats of execution for treason. Pierre’s daily existence became an exhausting exercise in survival and diplomacy.

The signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in October 1748 officially ended King George’s War. The treaty failed to clearly define the border between the French and English empires, specifically the Missaguash River. Beaubassin was on the east side (British side) of the Missaguash River.

Shortly after the end of King George’s War, Pierre and Anne’s lives abruptly changed again. Pierre and Anne had established a massive homestead in Beaubassin. France claimed the Missaguash River (running west of Beaubassin) as the border. Britain claimed all of the Missaguash region. Beaubassin, a French-speaking independent community, was on the British side of the Missaguash River.  Control of Beaubassin meant control of the corridor connecting Nova Scotia (British) and French North America.

Both empires constructed fortifications surrounding the Missaguash River, putting Beaubassin in harm’s way. Beaubassin became a militarized border zone between the British and French empires. The British were suspicious that Beaubassin Acadians were traitors and collaborators.

Beaubassin was one of the largest, wealthiest, and most agriculturally productive Acadian settlements in the region. The British wanted to bring the local population under firm British administration and prevent their resources from feeding French garrisons. They wanted to use the village’s agricultural output to supply British fortifications. 

In 1749, French troops came from Quebec to claim the territory north of the Missaguash River. The British responded in the spring of 1750 by sending Major Charles Lawrence and 800 British troops, who sailed into the Cumberland Basin to seize the village. Recognizing that the British were targeting the town for its strategic and logistical value, the French-aligned force and Mi’kmaq fighters set Beaubassin on fire. A scorched-earth military action, culminating in the destruction by fire of the colony of Beaubassin, destroying over 140 homes, barns, and including the parish church of Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, and the Mi’gmaq chapel of Sainte-Anne, systematically setting fire to every single civilian structure.

Cyr – The Driftwood Is Cast
Roughly 1,000 Acadian civilians stood on the river banks and watched their life’s work burn to the ground. Among the homeless Acadians stood Pierre Sr., Anne, and their children. As they watched French and Mi’kmaq soldiers set fire to their family homestead, barns, farm, crops, and the historic Church of Notre-Dame-de-Beaubassin (the church where they were married). Armed French soldiers and Mi’kmaq fighters compelled the fleeing families to cross the Missaguash River into French-controlled territory to the north. 

The displaced families built makeshift shelters under the shadow of the newly constructed French stronghold, Fort Beauséjour. They fled across the Missaguash River into French territory. The destruction of Beaubassin directly accelerated the onset of the Great Upheaval (Le Grand Dérangement), which devastated the entire Acadian population. Out of an estimated population of 14,100 Acadians, approximately 11,500 people were forcibly rounded up and deported by the British military.

When the British arrived, they found that the French and their First Nation allies had set Beaubassin on fire; they withdrew. The Acadians of Beaubassin fled to the north side of the river. By the fall of 1750, the French and their allies destroyed all the remaining Acadian communities south of the river. Most Acadians were now living as displaced refugees in French territory. The clash at Beaubassin marked the end of attempts at peace and began more than a decade of upheaval and violence in the region.

The displaced families sought refuge in the French-backed region near Fort Beauséjour. They joined thousands of other starving Acadians, fleeing from different destroyed communities. At Camp d’Espérance on the Miramichi River, there were temporary refugee camps “under the protection of French troops.” They helped to build this makeshift refugee camp under the shadow of the newly constructed Fort Beauséjour. 

For the next five years, Pierre (1711) Sr. and family, displaced by war, lived as vigilant refugees. The 1752 Census has him and his family living as refugees in Memramcook (just west of the fort). To receive meager government food rations from the French Crown, Pierre Sr. and his teenage sons, Jean and Pierre Jr (b. 1738), were forced by the French military to help clear forests, build roads, and dig heavy earthen ramparts for Fort Beauséjour.

Note – Although I will follow my direct lineage of Beaubassin refugees (Pierre Cyr -1711), the fire at Beaubassin acted as a geographical wedge that permanently divided the children of Jean-Pierre (1677–1741) and Claire-Angélique Cormier (1684–1741). Within one generation, the family was transformed from a single neighborhood cluster into four distinct global branches: the Madawaska pioneers (on the Maine-New Brunswick border), the mainland French-Canadian farmers and loggers of Quebec, the island fishermen of Saint Pierre and Miquelon (off the coast of Newfoundland), and the Cajun populations of the American South (Louisiana).

The Cleansing Begins – Le Grand Dérangement
On July 4th, 1755, fifteen Acadian leaders refused to sign an Oath of Allegiance to the King. They refused to take the oath, as they had done before. This new oath removed the “Neutrality Clause” that had protected the Acadians since 1730, meaning it would force them to bear arms against fellow Frenchmen and Indigenous allies. 

British Chief Justice Belcher proclaimed, “Persons who have once refused to take the oath are … ‘Popish Recusants.“  Governor Lawrence ordered the fifteen Acadian delegates escorted across the harbor to Georges Island to Fort Charlotte to await vessels for deportation.  Thus began the forced removal of all Recusants out of the Province known as the Le Grand Dérangement. 

By this time, in July 1755, Pierre’s (1711) household had swelled with the births of his youngest children, including toddler Michel. They were completely destitute, exhausted from five years of camp life, and highly vulnerable when British forces finally attacked the fort. British forces captured Fort Beauséjour in Chignecto and began a systematic roundup and imprisonment of local Acadian men.

The Cyr Driftwood Is Split
In October 1755, British troops launched synchronized ambush sweeps across the Chignecto area, capturing the adult men, including Pierre, his eldest son Jean, and daughter Anne-Marie. Pierre Cyr Sr. was highly vocal in his resistance and refusal to submit to the British authorities at Chignecto; he was not a submissive civilian. 

Governor Lawrence designated Pierre and 20 others as ringleaders and chief promoters of the disturbance against the Crown. Retribution ensued, and Pierre and two of his children were arrested. Their forced capture was part of the British removal of all Recusant Arcadians from the Province, the Le Grand Dérangement.

Pierre Cyr – A Rebel With A Cause
Rather than allowing families to board vessels together, the British command split the Cyr family into different ships that departed on the same day. Pierre Sr., identified as one of the 21 ringleaders and chief promoters of the disturbance, was isolated from the general population. He was stripped of his family, heavily guarded, and loaded onto the HMS Syren. 

By the time of Cyr’s arrival in Charleston, South Carolina, colonial officials deemed a small group of Acadian men—including Pierre—too hostile and dangerous to release. So, South Carolina authorities banished these dangerous rebels. The ship set sail for England, completely severing the chances of him locating his children in Charleston.

Once in England, British officials transferred Pierre to Rochefort, France. Pierre refused to accept his exile and boarded the Chariot Royal in an attempt to return to North America. The Chariot Royal was intercepted at sea by the British Royal Navy. Pierre, taken prisoner a second time, was transported back to Plymouth and then to Portsmouth. Historians note he died in exile before April 1763, likely in a British naval prison hospital or back in the ports of Rochefort, France, from the accumulated diseases of his multi-ocean voyages.

Pierre’s Captured Children
Jean Cyr (b. ~1738), 17-year-old son of Pierre, was rounded up separately with standard civilian laborers. Jean was forced onto the brigantine Two Brothers under Captain James Best. This ship held 132 Acadian exiles. Anne-Marie (b. 1740), 15-year-old daughter of Pierre, was held hostage with other women and adolescent girls and was loaded onto a different, standard family transport ship destined for the American South.  Both Anne-Marie and her brother Jean were part of the same October fleet that transported her father to South Carolina.

Anne-Marie (b. 1740) Path
The journey of Pierre’s two indentured children took a different path. The physical separation of the father and his children happened in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina colony. The ships full of Acadian deportees dropped anchor in Charleston, South Carolina, within days of each other. The Two Brothers arrived on November 11, 1755, while the HMS Syren arrived between November 15 and 19, 1755.  Jean (b. ~1738) and Anne-Marie (b. 1740) were allowed to disembark in Charleston as destitute refugees. South Carolina archives record that because the local government refused to feed them, the young Acadians were distributed to local plantations and urban households to work as indentured servants. 

South Carolina’s climate, heavy disease outbreaks, and hostile local authorities made survival difficult. Historical records note that a massive portion of the Acadians assigned to South Carolina immediately pooled what little money they had to buy or construct small coastal vessels. Anne-Marie joined a flotilla of these small boats that slipped out of Charleston harbor.

Navigating in secret up the Atlantic coast, her group managed to bypass British blockades. They successfully made landfall in French-controlled Acadia, finding temporary asylum with other escapees along the Miramichi River and Camp d’Espérance, terrain that was impassable to British regular infantry but highly familiar to the Acadians. Anne found the Maritimes entirely occupied by the British. Word quickly spread along the Acadian underground network that a significant portion of the Chignecto refugees had been evacuated by the French to the Quebec City area before the fall of New France.

Following the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, travel restrictions eased. Anne-Marie traveled up the St. Lawrence River pipeline, specifically hunting for her mother and siblings. She migrated further north into French Canada. She safely relocated to Quebec province. Records indicate that she tracked down her surviving older brother, Pierre Jr., and her mother, Anne Poirier.

Jean Cyr (b. ~1738) Path
Brother Jean Cyr’s escape from indentureship took a different course. Jean was deported from Acadia on the vessel Two Brothers. Two Brothers departed the Chignecto area on October 13, 1755, and landed in Charleston, South Carolina. The South Carolina Council voted to distribute the young, able-bodied Acadians to various local parishes and plantations to serve as indentured agricultural laborers. 

Jean’s servitude on a subtropical plantation did not last long. Jean befriended two fellow Chignecto exiles, Benjamin Thibodeau and Honoré Breau. In the winter of 1756, the trio broke out of their assigned plantation quarters. Jean and his companions decided to escape via land.

After walking over 300 miles, the group crossed the colonial border into Virginia. Their French accents and lack of travel papers immediately gave them away. A local Virginia militia patrol intercepted the starving young men, arrested them, and threw them into a Virginia jail as suspected French spies.

Virginia’s colonial governor, Robert Dinwiddie, dealing with the French and Indian War on his own western frontier, refused to harbor Acadian refugees, viewing them as rebels who, if given the opportunity, would join the French military. Governor Dinwiddie ordered that all Acadians caught in Virginia were to be expelled. In May 1756, Jean, Thibodeau, and Breau were marched out of their Virginia jail cells and loaded onto a transport ship bound directly for the British Isles. 

The ship crossed the Atlantic and docked in Bristol, England. Jean, with a record of escape, was formally classified as a Prisoner of War (POW). Jean spent the next seven grueling years (1756–1763) locked away in overcrowded, unsanitary British naval prisons and barracks surrounding Bristol. He survived on meager prisoner rations while the Seven Years’ War raged across the globe. 

The Treaty of Paris (1763) ended the Seven Years’ War (French and Indian War). Britain was legally required to release its French prisoners. In May 1763, Jean boarded a cartel ship to Rochefort, France. Jean spent a few years living among the stranded Acadian communities in the coastal ports of France, but he struggled to adapt to European societal norms. 

Jean boarded a ship to the tiny, rocky French-controlled territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon (just off the coast of Newfoundland). The 1763 Treaty of Paris declared that France surrendered its continental North American territories but was allowed to retain the tiny archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon as an unfortified fishing base. The French island became a prime destination for displaced Acadians seeking to live under French rule.

On May 15, 1767, French records have Jean arriving “at his own expense” on the tiny French territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Safe back in North America and on French soil,  he married Apollonie dit Paulette Poirier, also a refugee from Beaubassin.

In 1778, Jean’s life was disrupted again. During the American Revolutionary War, France backed the American colonies. In 1778, British forces retaliated by raiding Saint Pierre and Miquelon, burning the settlements, and forcibly deporting the population back to France. Jean was sent back across the Atlantic once more. Records indicate that he lived his final decade in France. He passed away on September 3, 1802, in Port-Louis, Morbihan, Brittany, France, at approximately 64 years of age.

Wife Anne Poirier and Son Pierre Cyr Jr (1738) Path
Back home, Anne Poirier and her children evacuated Camp d’Espérance and managed to break past the British military perimeter. They utilized the dense, marshy woods flanking the Petitcodiac and Memramcook Rivers to avoid British capture and deportation. Anne Poirier (Pierre’s 1711), wife and 17-year-old son, Pierre Cyr Jr (1738), became the protectors of the household, guiding the remaining children to escape. 

After the British burned their lands (1755), they decided to flee. They slipped past checkpoints into the northern forests. Using Mi’kmaq portage trails, waterways, and remote outposts, threaded their way to the northern coast. Protected by Acadian guerrilla fighters led by Charles Deschamps de Boishébert, provided with food rations and hiding spots for fleeing families. Continuing northward, they reached the eastern shoreline of New Brunswick. The family walked the coast toward Cocagne and the Miramichi River delta along the Northumberland Strait.

Cyrs On PEI?
Anne used her connections to secure passage on a small, local fishing boat (bateau) to cross the Northumberland Strait, a body of water separating Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island) from the mainland, in Cocagne. Under the cover of night or thick coastal fog to avoid British naval cutters patrolling the Northumberland Strait, they crossed the water and made landfall on the southern coast of Île Saint-Jean. Anne, teenager Pierre, and younger siblings crossed the Strait and made landfall on Île Saint-Jean, still under French control.

Once safely on the French-controlled island, they joined thousands of other displaced Acadians who had overwhelmed the local French infrastructure. When Anne Poirier arrived on Île Saint-Jean as a displaced mother with her young children, she wasn’t wandering aimlessly. She was seeking a safety net of her siblings, in-laws, and cousins from the Beaubassin community. The 1752 Sieur de la Roque (for Île Saint-Jean) census and subsequent colonial registers show the exact relatives Anne was searching for.

The broader Trois-Rivières region on Île Saint-Jean (intersection of the Cardigan, Brudenell, and Montague Rivers) was the hub for the Cormier and Bourgeois arrivals. Because Anne Poirier’s mother was a Bourgeois and her maternal grandmother was a Cormier, she had deep-rooted family support here. Cousins, such as Pierre Cormier and Jean-Baptiste Cormier, refugees of earlier days, helped build shelters for incoming families.

Port-la-Joye was the main administrative and military hub. Anne’s brothers (The Poiriers), Michel Poirier and Pierre Poirier, were involved in coordinating food distributions from the French garrison for the incoming waves of starving refugees. Pierre Cyr’s extended family was also scattered through this central district.

In the late 1750s, as the island’s conditions deteriorated into severe famine, these families formed a tight-knit underground communication network. When French authorities quietly organized the evacuation ships to Quebec in October 1757, it was this exact network of Poirier, Cyr, and Bourgeois relatives that helped Anne secure passage for herself and her children.

By late 1757, a severe crop blight destroyed the island’s grain supplies, forcing the French administration to coordinate a mass evacuation to Quebec City. It was during this crisis that Anne and Pierre Jr. gathered the surviving children—Marie-Rose, Marie-Claire, Marie, Anastasie, and toddler Michel—to board the crowded transport ship that ultimately brought them into the St. Lawrence River.

Back To The Mainland 
In October 1757, Anne boarded one of two refugee transport ships leaving Île Saint-Jean. After a three-week journey up the St. Lawrence River, she docked at the port of Quebec City. Mother Anne Poirier, her teenage son Pierre, and the younger children officially made landfall at the port of Quebec City in late autumn 1757. October 1757 marked the beginning of a family relocation process along the St Lawrence River. 

The family stepped off the vessel onto the docks of Quebec City’s Basse-Ville (Lower Town). They arrived destitute in a colony already experiencing severe food shortages. Almost immediately upon landfall, a devastating smallpox outbreak tore through the arriving Acadian refugee populations. Between November 1757 and March 1758, hundreds of Acadians died in the capital’s makeshift barracks and hospitals. 

To save her remaining children, Anne Poirier kept her family isolated from the city center, surviving on meager municipal bread rations distributed by Intendant François Bigot’s colonial administration. By the spring of 1758, the French colonial government realized that keeping thousands of starving, sick refugees clustered in Quebec City was a major military and health liability. The Governor ordered the systematic dispersal of Acadian households along both shores of the St. Lawrence River. Families were assigned to seigneuries (land districts) further inland, or upriver. French authorities dispersed the surviving Cyr families up the St. Lawrence River to Batiscan, a Jesuit refugee community. 

The family traveled approximately 50 miles by boats (bateaux) pulled or rowed against the St. Lawrence current southwest (upriver) from Quebec City to reach their assigned billet in Batiscan. They made final landfall at the Seigneury of Batiscan, a secure agricultural enclave managed by the Jesuit order. While Batiscan was geographically safer than the frontline war zones, the journey and the subsequent winter migrations proved fatal to the youngest family members.

Earthen camp shelters and malnutrition compromised the children’s health, leading directly to the parish burial records:  Anastasie Cyr succumbed first, buried by the parish priest on January 3, 1759. Toddler Michel Cyr passed away shortly thereafter during the identical wave of winter camp deprivations. Anne Poirier and young Pierre (c. 1738) continuously worked the local Batiscan fields for the next four years, keeping the surviving daughters alive until the 1763 Treaty of Paris.

Anne Poirier, her son Pierre Jr. (b. 1738), and the surviving daughters then traveled from Batiscan to Beauport in the spring of 1763. This move represents their final migration as refugees. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in February 1763, the Seven Years’ War officially ended, and the family was finally free to leave their government-mandated billeting in the Batiscan seigneury to seek permanent roots.

In 1763, the family packed what few belongings they had managed to accumulate during their five years of farm labor in Batiscan. Pierre, now a young man of about 25, his mother, and his sisters journeyed along the Chemin du Roy to Beauport. The family had to pass directly under the shadow of Quebec City’s high stone walls and the port where they had landed during the famine of 1757.

In April 1763, the Cyr’s made final landfall in the parish of Nativité-de-Notre-Dame de Beauport, an agricultural community along narrow farms extending from the riverbanks. Almost immediately upon arriving in town, Pierre and his mother met with a local royal notary in Beauport to draft and sign his marriage contract with the French-Canadian widow Marie-Charlotte Isoir dit Provençal, whose husband was a casualty of war, likely the Plains of Abraham. Two days later, the family gathered in the Beauport parish church to witness the wedding.

The Cyr family ended their eight years of wandering as Acadian refugees. Pierre moved directly onto the established landholdings of his new wife’s family. His mother, Anne Poirier, and his younger sisters finally had a stable, permanent roof over their heads, transitioning fully into the fabric of the Beauport community where our ancestor, Pierre Cyr (b 1768), my great-grandmother (Mim’s) father, would be born five years later.

# 154 Congress – Under The Influence

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Intoxication is the state of reduced physical and mental control caused by a toxin; common signs are slurred speech, impaired balance, and poor judgment. Members of the United States Congressional Zionist Club exhibit at least one of these symptoms when Israeli agenda items arise. At the State of the Union Address, Congressional poor judgment reigned supreme.

In his State of the Union Address, Trump parroted Benjamin Netanyahu’s propaganda about Tehran’s refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons and missile program. “They’ve already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.” He added: “But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon.”  Curiously, he omitted that the No. 1 perpetrator of terrorism is Israel and avoided explaining that missiles are Iran’s only deterrent against Israel.

A remarkable thing took place that evening, rivaled only by the Knesset in Jerusalem, both sides of the aisle stood and gave the President a standing ovation.  Congress’s public display of an addiction to Israeli poison. An addiction that only a mandatory Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program could rehabilitate.

The Congress virtue signaling act was an obligatory display of support for Israeli lies about Iranian nuclear intent. That dastardly act unshackled the psychopathic cabal of Israeli sycophants embedded in the White House and Department of War. While a strong anti-war or anti-invasion statement made by Congress might have saved lives, instead, history may record that Congress provided a wink of approval for an attack on a sovereign country on behalf of a third country, Israel.  

Wars of necessity are in response to a genuine threat. Wars of choice are in the absence of such a threat. The regime change war initiated by the George W. Bush administration against Iraq in 2003, and the war that Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump initiated on February 28, were both wars of choice. Bush knew that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and posed no threat to the United States or its regional allies. In 2026, Washington intelligence knew that Iran’s nuclear weapons development ended in 2003. Iran did not constitute a military threat to the United States, but continued to repeat Netanyahu’s lies.

The U.S. and Israeli first strike killed the Iranian religious leader along with some 40 other political and military leaders, foolishly expecting it to be a decapitation strike. Expecting a quick and painless Venezuela-like operation resulting in the long-suffering people of Iran taking to the streets to reclaim their country, they did get the anticipated reaction, but the Iranian motive was quite the opposite. Millions of Iranians took to the streets, not to revolt but to mourn the slain Ayatollah and to reaffirm support for their government, reminiscent of the post-9/11 American citizens rallying around the flag.

Trump and his clueless neocons miscalculated the Iranian will. They were oblivious to a proud 3,000-year-old Persian history and ignorant about the Shia traditions of martyrdom. By executing the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, the U.S. and Israel created a martyr and, unbeknownst to them, sabotaged their plan.

Shia Iran celebrates martyrdom as the ultimate sacrifice of life. To die while defending the community, property, or upholding justice is an act of martyrdom, worthy of a high spiritual status. Martyrs (shahid) are believed to be alive with God and granted immediate entrance to paradise. Ayatollah Khamenei died defending the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Shia Islam will not be passive; they will react.

Blowback has already begun; U.S. citizens are in danger, and Congress was complicit. Ingesting Israeli toxins is dangerous, harmful, and should come with a warning like alcohol and cigarettes. The toxin-impaired Congress demonstrated poor judgment by applauding the false Israeli rhetoric spewed by Trump. However, such behavior predominates in a body under the influence.

Congress should have begun impeachment of Trump on February 28th, immediately after the first strike. But Congress was too busy drinking from the trough of the Israeli lobby. If acts of courage are needed, Congress cowers; when grandstanding on behalf of Israel emanates, Congress peacocks. On second thought, it should impeach itself.

#153 – Why Can’t Washington Take YES For An Answer?

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YES! No Nukes
In 2003, nuclear bombs became sacrilegious and forbidden when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei first issued a fatwa, declaring the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons haram (forbidden) under Islamic law.

YES! No Nukes
The 2015 JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Deal) provided intrusive inspections that no country had ever agreed to such invasive terms. These inspections confirmed that Iran was enriching uranium for civilian and medical use only.

YES! No Nukes
Earlier this year (2026), Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reaffirmed the Khamenei fatwa ban on nuclear weapons.

YES! No Nukes
 In Geneva on Thursday, February 26, 2026, at the conclusion of the third round of Iranian-American talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed that the discussions held had achieved significant progress. Abbas Araghchi added that both sides agreed that technical teams would begin discussions the following Monday in Vienna, at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Araghchi stressed that there is no military solution to the nuclear issue, emphasizing that dialogue remains the only viable path to resolve it.

YES! No Nukes
Badr al-Busaidi, the Omani foreign minister and mediator in the Geneva talks, said on Friday that American and Iranian officials had achieved tangible progress and that a peace agreement is within reach. In an interview with CBS News, Badr al-Busaidi stated that Iran had pledged not to possess any nuclear materials capable of making a bomb.

YES! No Nukes
Badr al-Busaidi confirmed that Tehran had agreed not to stockpile enriched uranium. He called this something entirely new, rendering the enrichment debate less central.

#152 – God Will Punish You – Did I Kill JFK?

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For almost sixty years, I felt guilty for the death of JFK. Guilty to a degree of interest, maybe obsession, to understand the machinations surrounding that November day. My interest is personal and motivated by an emotional struggle between guilt, deflection, and the truth. The following story is my recollection of that day. I have a vivid memory of that day, but it is through the eyes of a young boy. 

‘God will punish you’ were words that I heard often. My very secular Roman Catholic mother connects happenstance with the will of God; when something good happened, God was rewarding you, and when something bad happened, God was punishing you. At 10 years in 1963, it was imprinted that behavior determined outcome; today, at 72 years old, it still resonates. On November 22, 1963, my life and history changed. My President was executed in Dallas, as I committed a crime in Plymouth, Ma. Realistically, the two were not connected; however, with the unsophisticated logic of a ten-year-old, they were.

Miss Maguire and her 5th-grade Willard School class took a field trip to Plymouth, Ma. Our class visited Plymouth Plantation, Plymouth Rock, and the Mayflower. The day was sunny, warm, and clear.  Ironically, such a beautiful, balmy day in late autumn that we sons and daughters of Pilgrims call an Indian summer day. Our first stop was Plymouth Plantation. That is where I perpetrated my crime, in the Plantation gift shop. I knowingly walked out the door with a few trinkets that I had slid into my pocket.

I might have been confused by a lesson I learned earlier that day when a Plantation official explained the traditional Native American goods exchange process. Clearly, I misunderstood the difference between barter and theft. After all, my ancestors came ashore in the 1630s, so I had been indoctrinated with the Pilgrim version of market exchange, stealing stuff from the indigenous. However, I was uncomfortable embracing the spirit of the Pilgrims with the voice of my mother repeating, ‘God will punish you.’ 

We left Plymouth Plantation for our final destination, Plymouth Harbor. There we boarded the Mayflower and walked throughout the vessel. From the ship, we walked to Plymouth Rock, an old, cracked rock with sand on all sides. Skeptical of the logistics and the process that identified that rock as the first stepped upon by the Pilgrims was beyond my comprehension. Historically naive and gullible, I accepted most of the questionable narratives presented that day. We ended our field trip with a harbor-side picnic, eating the home lunches we packed. We finished eating, picked up after ourselves, and boarded the bus to take us back to Quincy. Knowing that I pulled off the biggest caper since the Dutch stole Manhattan, I awaited the punishment from God. 

When we returned to Willard School, we remained sequestered on the bus. My thoughts ran rampant. I pondered the possibility that Plymouth Plantation authorities had called ahead to inform Mr. Bini, the Willard School principal, of my heist. ‘God will punish you’ was amplified and becoming a reality. We waited for what seemed an eternity. Mr. Bini boarded the bus with a solemn look. I awaited his public condemnation, but it never came. Instead, came my punishment from God. Mr. Bini announced that JFK, my President, was shot in Dallas and died. My guilt was immense if I had not stolen those trinkets; my President would still be alive, and the world would be a better place. Later that day, when I got home, I immediately dug a shallow hole and buried the evidence, but I could not bury my guilt. 

My search for an accurate account and reason for executing the President of the United States began five years after my heist during my sophomore year. Mr. Tatro, a first-year teacher, taught a unit critical of the Warren Report; he presented a JFK Conspiracy narrative. I became hooked, and it began my journey down a rabbit hole I continue to travel. The information learned has led me to several conclusions. Since 1949, the U.S. Government has transitioned from a democratic republic to a security state. Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed a pasty, as he claimed. The shot that killed Kennedy came from the grassy knoll area. The assassin behind the fence was only one of several gunmen in Dealy Plaza that day.

Leading up to the Kennedy assassination, the Security State, initiated by the National Security Act of 1949, had been involved in other successful political coups. At the international level, they had orchestrated several. (Iran, Guatemala, Congo) Kennedy would be their domestic project. On that infamous day, in Dallas, JFK, enemy #1 of the security state, was executed and removed from the Presidential office, and was replaced by a servant to their demands.

In 1960, Kennedy financed his Presidential campaign from the Kennedy family coffers. Not beholden to special interest powers, JFK was the new sheriff in town. He had amassed a dangerous list of outlaws. The list included: the CIA (Allen Dulles) over the Bay of Pigs fiasco; the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the handling of the Cuban Missle Crisis; powerful Mafia figures over Attorney General, RFK, double-cross; Israel over his ultimatum concerning its nuclear bomb development; the Texas Oil conglomerate angered by his proposal to eliminate the oil depletion allowance; the Military Industrial Complex for his intended withdrawal for Vietnam; and LBJ for his pursuit to find a new VP running mate in 1964. 

On November 22, 1963, the U.S. Constitution and the democratic process suffered a fatal blow. The power of an elected President would be forever compromised. It began the metastasis of a new security state. A governmental cancer that usurped the constitutional powers given to the Executive Branch. The Bill of Rights, guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, began to wane. It has taken 62 years to come to terms with my role in the JFK killing. The CIA, JCS, the Mafia, Israel, the Texas oil conglomerate, the Military Industrial Complex, LBJ, and the FBI cover-up never did. Pin-pointing the event that derailed the Constitutional balance of power is essential. To reconstruct a democratic republic free from the grips of a rogue security state empire, what happened in Dealy Plaza must be exposed. 

Can we recover, or are we beyond the point of return? Are we at the crossroads described by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence? ‘Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.

#151 No Kings Day – Maybe A Moral Monarch!

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There’s nothing quite like the classic middle finger to send a clear message. However, for it to be effective, the gesture should be a response to a specific action. Using the middle finger in public just to express general unhappiness or anger is pointless; it needs to be directed at something more precise.

The 1963 March on Washington, which was attended by an estimated 250,000 people, protested for the civil and economic rights of African Americans and marked the beginning of a successful civil rights movement. The 1964 demonstration in Selma, Alabama, focused on advocating for voting rights. In October 1969, millions participated in demonstrations across cities and towns nationwide against the Vietnam War. In 2013, public protests erupted both domestically and internationally when President Obama threatened military intervention in Syria. These movements were successful because the messages were clear and resonated with many people.

The message sent by No Kings Day is, at best, contradictory. Unless I’m mistaken, Trump was democratically elected. So, what is the intended message? Is this simply a kinder, more peaceful, and inclusive version of January 6th? My point is that there are many pressing issues to address, and it would be beneficial for all protesters if specific concerns could be articulated more clearly, without the influence of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Despair and calls for retribution over losing an election must end because peaceful transitions of the Washington corruption is a fundamental part of our flawed democratic process.

Across the country, there were signs highlighting real issues, but they were overshadowed by a sea of sloganistic chants. It’s hard to take a ‘massive nationwide’ protest seriously when the most common chants are ‘No kings in America’ and ‘This is what democracy looks like.’ Given what the democratic process has produced over the past several decades, one might argue that a moralist monarch would be preferable.

The social capital generated by Sunday’s demonstration was squandered. We the people must resist our sheeplike tendencies. Most shepherd are not going to lead our nation to greener pastures; many are wolves in disguise, promoting different factions, something the Founding Fathers warned against. James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 10, stated that a healthy Union must “break and control the violence of faction.” Similarly, Hamilton referred to political factions as “the most fatal disease” of popular governments.

Can we focus and pool our resources around a select few issues? Party politics have divided us, but uniting our efforts may change the direction of our spiral. Let’s choose a few rallying causes from the following list: federal troops in our streets, ICE’s storm-trooper tactics, inflation, the genocide in Gaza, an Israel 1st policy, the Ukraine war, the Charlie Kirk assassination conspiracy, the vanishing middle class, affordable housing, oligarch influence, the War Department budget, NATO, Congress’s subservience to lobbyists, and the killing of Venezuelan citizens in open seas. Any one of these issues deserves more attention than politicking that benefit of the other corrupted faction. No matter what fool accents to the top of the heap, they ultimately serve their donors and the entrenched sociopaths in the security state.

#150 – Make Way – Generation Z Has Arrived

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I became intrigued while watching a news video of a college student pro-Palestinian protest unexpectedly turning violent. Not as an endorsement of violence; rather, the admiration and enthusiasm of Generation Z students exercising their First Amendment rights—freedom of speech and the right to assemble. It’s important to note that student anti-war demonstrations have been lacking since the protests against the Iraq War in 2002-03.

Identifying catalyst events as they unfold in real time is challenging. Even with the benefit of historical hindsight, these catalyst events are often the subject of debate. When I was a 14-year-old during the 1968 North Vietnam Army TET Offensive, I had no idea that, despite being an eventual military victory for U.S. forces, it started the movement to end the Vietnam War. Now, at 72 years old, I feel similar fervor radiating in the pro-Palestinian movement. Generation Z has revealed a keen awareness of the genocide occurring in Gaza. AAI can only hope that the pro-Palestinian demonstrations are the beginning of the end of U.S. support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza. 

 A generational shift is occurring. The Baby Boomers are quickly fading away. Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z are next up. The main difference among these groups lies in the degree of indoctrination they have received from state-vetted cathedral agencies. Many members of Generation X and the Millennials maintain a strong alliance with the Baby Boomers. All three generations loyally complied with the extensive measures of totalitarianism implemented during the Covid years. Most believe in the narratives that we live in a time of unprecedented liberty, limited government, and liberal democracy governed by rules. In 1970, John Lennon released  Working Class Hero. The song still resonates.

The soft power of the once-compliant media has eroded, leading to widespread distrust. With the rise of the internet (blogs, podcasts, and various social media platforms), traditional media can no longer suppress alternative perspectives on events. Bruised by the COVID years, Generation Z no longer views mainstream media as a reliable source of truth. This generation of skeptics, armed with devices that allow them to access multiple viewpoints, can skillfully navigate around state censorship. 

Generation Z witnessed the State exerting pressure on social media companies to silence critics of COVID-related dictates, such as mask mandates, quarantine rules, and anti-vaccination voices. Once the dust settled, they saw a cabal of criminals conspiring with Dr. Anthony Fauci—a figure who enforced strict lockdowns, limited gatherings, and mandated jabs of an unproven experimental vaccine. Fauci’s wealth grew as his personal freedoms remained intact. Generation Z  saw restorative justice unmasked, revealing criminal responsibility to be selective. George Carlin described the power structures as a membership. “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it”.

Washington’s attempt at global hegemony and one-world governance has failed, resulting in a range of problems. Washington’s arrogance is likely to focus on the symptoms rather than the root causes of these issues. Likely to incite further discontent from a public emerging from years in an anesthetized state.   

Washington is at a critical crossroads: should it continue down a morally corrupt path or choose a more virtuous off-ramp? It’s a choice between permanent wars, genocide, and financial doom, or renovation and investment in a house abandoned for foreign interventions and servitude to the oligarchy. Force begets force and is never a sustainable solution. National Guard in the streets of our cities will not silence the people demonstrating in favor of a more moral policy.

Our democratic republic should not be allowed to evolve into a total state. A revisionist approach to decentralizing power will cure a lot of ills. Let’s hope Generation Z can introduce a navigational app to point Washington in the right direction. 

#149 “The Petie and Donnie Show” No Rah-Rah

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We would enter the gym, the school band would play, ‘March down the field to the music. Quincy is out for victory.’ After watching a video of Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump’s unsuccessful rally, I had flashbacks of my high school days sitting in the gym listening to the coach and captains talk bluster about the upcoming game. We would listen and cheer, probably more for getting out of class than for the actual speeches. I did not see any of that fervor displayed by the Generals and Admirals in attendance; they were stoic. The fact that two clowns prepared high school-level rally speeches for these distinguished men and women (not all of them) speaks volumes. Sophomoric comes to mind.

We all understood the purpose of our high school pep rally: it was meant to invigorate us for the Thanksgiving Day football game against our cross-city rival. After the gathering of military elites at a Trump event, I couldn’t help but wonder: which rival is next on Washington’s schedule? High schools usually release their season’s schedule in advance. However, Washington is more spontaneous, making it difficult to predict their next battle. Still, they have shared a few hints, teasing us with bombings in Iran and against Venezuela. Then again, we cannot rule out major cities in the US.

Other questions come to mind: When did the Department of Defense become the Department of War? What happened to the concept of defense? If we consider this change in terminology, it might have caused Coach Bud Mosher, the defensive coordinator, to stand up and walk out of the Thanksgiving Day Game rally. Unfortunately, generals and admirals seem to have less integrity than Bud Mosher. It seems reasonable to suggest that if military elites are required to pass a physical training test, then politicians should also undergo polygraph tests. After all, military personnel should maintain a certain level of physical fitness, just as politicians should demonstrate a level of honesty.

#148 – Putting On My Tinfoil Hat – Yet Again!

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Mr. Ed Tatro was an English teacher at Quincy High School (MA). In 1968, Mr Tatro taught a unit on the JFK assassination. An English teacher teaching history? Yes, public education was at the behest of local school boards. The City of Quincy advocated for teachers to use spontaneity and creativity, with varying levels of controversy. Critical thinking was actually encouraged. The era before teachers were burdened by standardized testing, before evaluations were tied to student standardized results, before the soul of education was legislated away. I digress.

I became a critic of the Warren Commission, soon to be labeled just another conspiracy kook. My journey began five years after the JFK assassination as a 15-year-old. Fifty-seven years later, I continue on that path. Charlie Kirk’s murder was preceded by events such as JFK, MLK, RFK, Ruby Ridge, Waco, the OKC bombing, 9/11, Russia-gate, the January 6th ‘coup, and Epstein files, to name a few. 

Mr Tatro enlightened us on the inconsistencies in the Warren Report, evidence ignored, misplaced, or doctored, witnesses mysteriously disappearing or dying, altered photographs, and the folly of a magic bullet, combined, to make it very difficult to take seriously the Sunday night popular FBI television show (1965-1974) starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr.  This Hollywood production depicted a professional, honest, and competent agency solving crime in a most moralistic manner. The reality of the FBI investigation of the JFK assassination versus the Hollywood version was a block I never got past.

Athletic coaches understand that scouting the opposition reveals tendencies and observable reactions to situations. FBI investigations of the events listed above have predictable tendencies, including: find a lone wolf patsy, fabricate a political motive, create a somewhat viable narrative, highlight “evidence” to support the official narrative, hide or discredit evidence that contradicts the narrative, ignore obvious distractions, when questioned, repeat the narrative, and ensure the mockingbird press to repeat their narrative. 

Today, the public demands a sophisticated game plan. It starts with an honest, diligent, and transparent investigation. It must be humbling for a well-resourced government agency to be outperformed by independent internet journalists. It’s humiliating that the FBI expects a technically savvy public to accept its narrative. The FBI is as relevant as the US Postal Service; both are relics of the past.

Today, at public events, cell phone cameras are in every hand. Video from these cell phones captured reality. The days of confiscating and editing the lone film (Abraham Zapruder’s) are long gone. The real-time videos prove exactly what the original Zapruder film captured. The kill shot did not come from the area the FBI would like you to believe. Amazingly enough, both the JFK and Charlie Kirk kill shots came from the victim’s right. 

Solving the actual crime is the most relevant task. Who, where, and with what must be answered. Mr Kirk’s neck was not of steel and most certainly not capable of stopping a .30-06 bullet. Gaslighting entrance wounds and exit wounds only serve the mockingbird media and drive-by news consumers. In 1963, the FBI pointed to a magic bullet. Today, are they pointing to Charlie Kirk’s magic neck? Gaslighting was shameful in 1963 as it is in 2025.

Upon solving the assassination, the next task is answering the question “Cui bono?” (who benefits) That answer may lead to the real killers because it sure as hell is not the 22-year-old boy who allegedly writes: vehicle lingering, outfit, drop point, and my love. At 73 years of age, I would not use that verbiage.  It’s outdated, just like the FBI.

#147 Yemen – The Road To Tehran?

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The Houthi – A Terrorist Group?

Yemen (the Houthi), one of the poorest countries in the world, is the only Arab state taking action against the Israeli for its inhumanity against Gaza. The Houthis are enforcing a blockade in response to Israeli violation of international law. Their action is directed at the most recent Israeli blockade of all humanitarian life-sustaining necessities and restarting the bombing of Gaza.

For this, the Israeli-partnered, America-first Trump administration has bombed Yemen, killing innocent civilians while labeling their targets as Houthi-controlled buildings. The language used by the US eerily resembles the Israeli explanation for its civilian slaughter in Gaza as Hamas-controlled hospitals and Hamas-controlled buildings.

Yemen, the same country Obama launched a war in 2015 at the behest of Saudi Arabia, is back in the news. (see post #012, 013) Obama’s US blockade on Yemen caused the world’s worst outbreak of cholera and starvation. We’re back this time at the behest of Israel and infused with a new Israeli-friendly game plan.

All Roads Lead To Iran

Was a more reasonable strategy considered? Maybe to have forced Israel to allow food, water, medical supplies, and electricity into Gaza and demand Israel enter into phase two of the cease-fire would have preempted the Houthi blockade. Although more prudent and humanitarian, this road does not lead to Tehran. The diabolical act against Yeman by Israeli-friendly Trump is the beginning of a beautiful paved road to Iran. The rhetoric against Iran is getting louder. I’m beginning to hear familiar echoes, “weapons of mass destruction.”  

Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi, and Iran

The common denominator is Israel. Hezbollah is a Lebanese military force against the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon. Hamas is a Gazan Organization (military and political) against the Israeli occupation of Gaza. The Houthi and Iran are the most vocal and ardent opponents of Israeli occupations and actions. What may appear to be a terrorist organization may just be victims of the George W. Bush 2001 definition. “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

Who is responsible for our Middle East policy?

In a March 15, 2025 poll conducted by Gerald Celente on X, asked “Who is the most powerful person in the U.S.?” The overwhelming response – Netanyahu at 64.9%. The US Middle East policy contradicts Trump’s “America First” and validates Mr. Celente’s poll. It’s “Israel First.”

#146 – Trump – Historical Infidal, Expropriating Stooge?

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History 101

Trump recently proposed to move 1.6 (2.2) million Palestinians from Gaza to places in the Middle East to make the clean-up and rebuilding of Gaza possible. Whether intended to be temporary or permanent, the idea to relocate Palestinians to Egypt and/or Jordan must invoke flashbacks for some of the elderly Palestinians to 1948. To ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their homeland is not new. The Trump proposal is not only immoral and ridiculous, it exposes the lack of understanding that this president has of Middle East history, making him vulnerable to the Israeli and Netanyahu arsenal of lies, deceit, and treachery.

Expropriation 101

For those who have a working knowledge of Israeli and Palestinian history, this plan seems oh so familiar to the Nakba (The Catastrophe). Nakba is the Arabic term used to describe the forced removal of Palestinians from their homes in the newly declared lands of Israel.* In 1948, during the formation of Israel, indigenous Palestinians sought refuge in the lands of Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank (under the control of Jordan), and Gaza (under the control of Egypt).

The removal of about 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in Israel (with no right to return) was to be the Zionist solution to the Palestinian problem. The relatively newly arrived European Zionists underestimated the determination, resilience, grit, and character of the Palestinians. Today, 75 years later, they are still fighting for their right to their homeland and sovereignty.

Reality 101

The Trump proposal got me thinking. It appears that due to the devastating damage inflicted by the Israeli-US bombs, Gaza is a total rebuild. The second part of this situation is the people of Gaza need to have their lives to return to some sense of normalcy. Their situation is the cause of Israeli war crimes. At the core is the Zionist elite and quest to conquer the lands of Greater Israel. (from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates River) Once acknowledged, a different perspective of Israeli expansion into Gaza, Southern Lebanon, the West Bank, and Syria becomes clear. 

The narrative of poor Israel struggling to survive surrounded by hostile Arab nations is the result of continuous propaganda we receive from the media, Hollywood, and the Israeli lobby-funded Congress. The fact is that the Arab states and Arabs are obstacles in the way of their Greater Israel project of the Zionist revisionist and the current Lukid Party.

Restoritive Justice 101

According to the United Nations, in Gaza, out of a population of 2.2 million people, 1.9 million are displaced from their homes as a result of Israeli brutal retaliation in response to the October 7th Hamas jail-brake killing of 1,200 Israelis. 

Today, roughly 10 percent of the Israeli Jewish population, totaling between 600,000 and 750,000 people, live in about 250 illegal settlements dispersed throughout the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The state of Israel supports these Israeli settlers in their Jewish-only luxury communities, known as settlements, built on Palestinian-owned land. These settlements were made possible by the fact that Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. 

International Law demands several responsibilities from the occupier of land and people under occupation. “Israel’s policy of settling its civilians in occupied Palestinian territory and displacing the local population contravenes fundamental rules of international humanitarian law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory.”**

Not So Modest Proposal

This violation of international law is the basis of my solution. Permanently remove the illegal settlers from the West Bank and East Jerusalem to allow the Gaza refugees to inhabit the housing built upon Palestinian land. The refugees will decide whether to stay in temporary housing provided in Gaza or relocate to the settler housing in the West Bank. After the reconstruction of Gaza, the refugees will decide whether to return or not return to Gaza. The collective overflow of housing and property in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem will compensate the Palestinians who lost their homes and property during the 1948 Nekba.  

The ultimate goal of this proposal is for an independent, sovereign Palestinian state(s) to emerge from the pre-1967 War borders. The new Palestinian state(s) will include the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. The responsibility of forming the new government(s) will not include Israel.  

*The 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine was the result of the brutal actions conducted by the (Eastern European saturated) Zionist forces of the Haganah, Irgun, and LEHI.