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I am pleased that others have joined this enquiry but I am already dismayed to find that someone has found it necessary to sweep the ""Jewish Question"" under the carpet when reference on this Talk page had already been made to one incident involving a ""Final Solution"" of the Jews in England. I like those terms because they shock the conscience in that everyone knows what those terms mean with regards to Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. It was the passage of the so-called ""Race laws"" of the 30s that led to the Holocaust of the 40s - there was a cause and effect.

Now with that preface out of the way I am stating that the 1215 Magna Carta contains the smoking gun of England's own move to rid the Isles of the Jews. This is not hidden history but well documented history. It is just not talked about because the English (I am English) don't want to be thought of as being antisemitic, but English history reeks of antisemitism.

What is not being addressed here (and even less now that someone has added the censor's touch), is that the Pope of Rome (there were other Popes), controlled England through his king; church and law (there was no secular law as such that was not santioned by the Church and the Church was the one Church based in Rome. I hope everyone knows about Henry VIII so that I don't have to explain that as well.)

So the Jews were moneychangers. Why were they moneychangers? Go and do your own research! You need to know. The Jews had a moneychanger relationship with the Church and that is why the clause is in there: the Jews were (are) not Christians (duh!) - not members of the Church of Rome. The Pope gave them special status. The representative for all of the wheeler-dealing was the Archbishop. The barons were merely local gangsters, or in today's understanding = warlords (thugs.)

The statements about the Jews in Magna Carta was not intended to educate readers as to who the Jews were - everyone knew who the Jews were. They were the People of the blood libel (""they killed Jesus""). The Church whose Jesus the Jews killed put up with them like the Nazis used Jews when it suited them and some Jews (a few) went along with the Nazis to save themselves at the expense of the majority of Jews. This is the thorny issue we are dealing with. Under English law the Jews were forbidden to do practically anything else but be moneychangers! They were the scum of society and the Church had a need for a sub-class of human beings. The Jews did not have the same status as everyone else and the Jews were murdered and abused. Because of the holier than thou attitude towards ethnic cleansing in the world today, the English do not want to admit that they were at it long before Herr Hitler got into the business!

Now move along to 1297 and ""bingo!"" = no Jews. Why? Because they were kicked out of England, forced to go underground or convert. Same thing happened in Spain. (Hello, isn't that what happened in Nazi Germany?) It was not until the time of Cromwell - long after Henry VIII told the Pope bye, bye and long after Shakespeare wrote his own infamous words about a moneylending Jew that Cromwell talked about religious tolleration. Why? Because Cromwell ruled the English Republic which had severed its relationship with the Church by chopping off the head of the king; abolishing the House of Lords and raiding all of the Church properties to put them out of business. Then the forces of the Republic went to Ireland and engaged in ""ethnic cleansing"" by wholesale murder and mayhem.

Read your history. Move up to the time of 18th Century and read about the status of Jews in Parliament (how and when they were finally allowed to sit in Parliament.)

The bottom line. The Magna Carta of 1215 needs to be explained: who wrote it and why and what it says and why. What we have here on Wiki right now is pure boring propaganda that explains nothing. But by looking at the clauses dealing with the Jews you can see that while the English may get on their high horses and yell about the evil Germans (remember the UK Royals are German are hiding under another name since WWI), then it is possible to gulp and say ""me too"" (in English) and understand that evil knows no race or religion.  16:12, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)"