![](”http://static.flickr.com/44/116364022_14e11279b9_o.jpg")
Monday, 25 Sep 2006
A group of people decide, that due to their religious beliefs, they needed to go and take over a piece of land that hosted people from a completely different religion and culture than theirs. They succeeded in doing so, in the process killing thousands, and forcing many of the indiginous population to flee to the neighbouring countries, which were run by people of their own race and held their own religion, and be replaced by more settlers, who immigrated from all over to make a home in this new land of theirs. The newly created nation, despite numerous attacks on it by its neighbours- who despised the new settlers and their religion and feared that they will try to take over more of their neighbouring lands due to their imperialist nature- over the years, prospered and became a center of knowledge and a place where people from a third religion enjoyed less persecution and more religious freedoms- although not exactly all of them- than in any of the neighbouring countries.
Now, the questions is this: am I talking about Israel or Andalus?
September 25th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Andalusia.
Israel does not have any intentions of taing more land from the arabs. It would only make their situation more diffucult. I view the occupation as a safety issue.
The moors were driven by Jihad.
September 25th, 2006 at 11:51 am
v.nice:)
I don’t know enough about andalus. In the case of Israel, the ‘process’ in which they killed ‘thousands’ is the process in which the others waged a deadly war on them.
The ‘group of people’ (in the case of Israel) came to that land rather than to any other because it was the one and only spot on this earth, which had been their national home (something that cannot be said for the Muslims who conquered Spain). To say ‘because of their religion’ is not quite true. Rather, it’s because of their national identity. As for “hosted people from a completely different religion and culture”. These “people from…different religion” were not being ‘hosted’ but merely had, in small numbers, entered from neighbouring lands. Nor were they only ones on the land at the time. There were already quite a few Jews there, in some towns and cities they were the majority, tho’ all in all, the land was very sparsly inhabited and no country was in place (by contrast, I’m guessing there was some sort of country in place in Andalus and some kind of ruler).
September 25th, 2006 at 11:53 am
I think you are talking about both.
But are you talking about the Christian or Muslim takeovers? Only one of the two has had Jewish takeovers.
What I never understood is why many Muslims seem to know that a land like Israel, which has been taken over by Jews, pagans, Christians, Muslims, Christians, Muslims, and again Jews is not Jewish or Christian but “Arab land”?
Why did only the Arab conquest change the legal ownership of the land? Why is Israel not Roman or Greek or Turkish but Arab?
(One reason it is Jewish is because the Jews are currently controlling it. But why is it Jewish and not Arab or Roman?)
But if taking over a country does not count, what does count?
What does the Quran say about who owns Andalus? What does it say about who owns Israel?
September 25th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Hmmm, could be Pakistan too, you know.
September 25th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
A sound criterion, in my point of view, to compare two hostile takeovers is the fate that the conquered indigenous population faces on the hands of their conqueror and whether their basic rights, e.g. the right to live, to own, to travel, to worship, are protected. Another important point is whether the invader strives to incorporate the natives in his newly constructed entity or strives to marginalize and exclude them from it.
September 25th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
The problems in Israel are mostly created by the Israelites themselves. If they had placed a tyrannical dictator in charge, had left the land a worthless desert and not prospered, Israel would be just like other countries in the region. Therefore they would be not set an example that threatens other tyrannical dictators. Nor would their lack of prosperity be anything to covet and make others jealous. Some grade school children will not attempt to do well because those that do will be resented. It would have been a good example for Israel to follow but no, they had to do better than everyone else.
September 25th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
MYTH
“The Jews have no claim to the land they call Israel.”
FACT
A common misperception is that all the Jews were forced into the Diaspora by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. and then, 1,800 years later, suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years.
The Jewish people base their claim to the Land of Israel on at least four premises: 1) the Jewish people settled and developed the land; 2) the international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people; 3) the territory was captured in defensive wars and 4) God promised the land to the patriarch Abraham.
Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in the Land of Israel continued and often flourished. Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea.
The Crusaders massacred many Jews during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years. By the early 19th century — years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement — more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel.1 The 78 years of nation-building, beginning in 1870, culminated in the reestablishment of the Jewish State.
Israel’s international “birth certificate” was validated by the promise of the Bible; uninterrupted Jewish settlement from the time of Joshua onward; the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949; the recognition of Israel by most other states; and, most of all, the society created by Israel’s people in decades of thriving, dynamic national existence.
“Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its ‘right to exist.’
Israel’s right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel’s legitimacy is not suspended in midair awaiting acknowledgement….
There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its ‘right to exist’ a favor, or a negotiable concession.”
— Abba Eban2
MYTH
“Palestine was always an Arab country.”
FACT
The term “Palestine” is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who, in the 12th Century B.C.E., settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain of what are now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century C.E., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palaestina to Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word “Filastin” is derived from this Latin name.3
The Hebrews entered the Land of Israel about 1300 B.C.E., living under a tribal confederation until being united under the first monarch, King Saul. The second king, David, established Jerusalem as the capital around 1000 B.C.E. David’s son, Solomon built the Temple soon thereafter and consolidated the military, administrative and religious functions of the kingdom. The nation was divided under Solomon’s son, with the northern kingdom (Israel) lasting until 722 B.C.E., when the Assyrians destroyed it, and the southern kingdom (Judah) surviving until the Babylonian conquest in 586 B.C.E. The Jewish people enjoyed brief periods of sovereignty afterward before most Jews were finally driven from their homeland in 135 C.E.
Jewish independence in the Land of Israel lasted for more than 400 years. This is much longer than Americans have enjoyed independence in what has become known as the United States.4 In fact, if not for foreign conquerors, Israel would be 3,000 years old today.
Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the language of most the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.”5
Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:
We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.6
In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: “There is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.”7
The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said “Palestine was part of the Province of Syria” and that, “politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity.” A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.”8
Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-World War I phenomenon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel’s capture of the West Bank.
MYTH
“The Palestinians are descendants of the Canaanites and were in Palestine long before the Jews.”
FACT
Palestinian claims to be related to the Canaanites are a recent phenomenon and contrary to historical evidence. The Canaanites disappeared from the face of the earth three millennia ago, and no one knows if any of their descendants survived or, if they did, who they would be.
Sherif Hussein, the guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia, said the Palestinians’ ancestors had only been in the area for 1,000 years.9 Even the Palestinians themselves have acknowledged their association with the region came long after the Jews. In testimony before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, for example, they claimed a connection to Palestine of more than 1,000 years, dating back no further than the conquest of Muhammad’s followers in the 7th century.10 And that claim is also dubious. Over the last 2,000 years, there have been massive invasions that killed off most of the local people (e.g., the Crusades), migrations, the plague, and other manmade or natural disasters. The entire local population was replaced many times over. During the British mandate alone, more than 100,000 Arabs emigrated from neighboring countries and are today considered Palestinians.
By contrast, no serious historian questions the more than 3,000-year-old Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, or the modern Jewish people’s relation to the ancient Hebrews.
“…[the Palestinian Arabs'] basic sense of corporate historic identity was, at different levels, Muslim or Arab or - for some - Syrian; it is significant that even by the end of the Mandate in 1948, after thirty years of separate Palestinian political existence, there were virtually no books in Arabic on the history of Palestine..”10a
MYTH
“The Balfour Declaration did not give Jews a right to a homeland in Palestine.”
FACT
In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration:
His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
The Mandate for Palestine included the Balfour Declaration. It specifically referred to “the historical connections of the Jewish people with Palestine” and to the moral validity of “reconstituting their National Home in that country.” The term “reconstituting” shows recognition of the fact that Palestine had been the Jews’ home. Furthermore, the British were instructed to “use their best endeavors to facilitate” Jewish immigration, to encourage settlement on the land and to “secure” the Jewish National Home. The word “Arab” does not appear in the Mandatory award.11
The Mandate was formalized by the 52 governments at the League of Nations on July 24, 1922.
MYTH
“The ‘traditional position’ of the Arabs in Palestine was jeopardized by Jewish settlement.”
FACT
For many centuries, Palestine was a sparsely populated, poorly cultivated and widely-neglected expanse of eroded hills, sandy deserts and malarial marshes. As late as 1880, the American consul in Jerusalem reported the area was continuing its historic decline. “The population and wealth of Palestine has not increased during the last forty years,” he said.12
The Report of the Palestine Royal Commission quotes an account of the Maritime Plain in 1913:
The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts…no orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached [the Jewish village of] Yabna [Yavne]….Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen….The ploughs used were of wood….The yields were very poor….The sanitary conditions in the village were horrible. Schools did not exist….The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert….The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants.13
Lewis French, the British Director of Development wrote of Palestine:
We found it inhabited by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and suffered severely from the prevalent malaria….Large areas…were uncultivated….The fellahin, if not themselves cattle thieves, were always ready to harbor these and other criminals. The individual plots…changed hands annually. There was little public security, and the fellahin’s lot was an alternation of pillage and blackmail by their neighbors, the Bedouin.14
Surprisingly, many people who were not sympathetic to the Zionist cause believed the Jews would improve the condition of Palestinian Arabs. For example, Dawood Barakat, editor of the Egyptian paper Al-Ahram, wrote: “It is absolutely necessary that an entente be made between the Zionists and Arabs, because the war of words can only do evil. The Zionists are necessary for the country: The money which they will bring, their knowledge and intelligence, and the industriousness which characterizes them will contribute without doubt to the regeneration of the country.”15
Even a leading Arab nationalist believed the return of the Jews to their homeland would help resuscitate the country. According to Sherif Hussein, the guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia:
The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants. One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could not retain a hold on him, though his ancestors had lived on it for 1000 years. At the same time we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its original sons (abna’ihilasliyin), for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland. The return of these exiles (jaliya) to their homeland will prove materially and spiritually [to be] an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields, factories, trades and in all things connected with toil and labor.16
As Hussein foresaw, the regeneration of Palestine, and the growth of its population, came only after Jews returned in massive numbers.
Mark Twain, who visited Palestine in 1867, described it as: “…[a] desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse….A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action….We never saw a human being on the whole route….There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”17
MYTH
“Zionism is racism.”
FACT
In 1975, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution slandering Zionism by equating it with racism. In his spirited response to the resolution, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Chaim Herzog noted the irony of the timing, the vote coming exactly 37 years after Kristallnacht.
Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, which holds that Jews, like any other nation, are entitled to a homeland.
History has demonstrated the need to ensure Jewish security through a national homeland. Zionism recognizes that Jewishness is defined by shared origin, religion, culture and history. The realization of the Zionist dream is exemplified by more than five million Jews, from more than 100 countries, who are Israeli citizens.
Israel’s Law of Return grants automatic citizenship to Jews, but non-Jews are also eligible to become citizens under naturalization procedures similar to those in other countries. Approximately 1,000,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze, Baha’is, Circassians and other ethnic groups also are represented in Israel’s population. The presence in Israel of thousands of dark-skinned Jews from Ethiopia, Yemen and India is the best refutation of the calumny against Zionism. In a series of historic airlifts, labeled Moses (1984), Joshua (1985) and Solomon (1991), Israel rescued almost 42,000 members of the ancient Ethiopian Jewish community.
Zionism does not discriminate against anyone. Israel’s open and democratic character, and its scrupulous protection of the religious and political rights of Christians and Muslims, rebut the charge of exclusivity. Moreover, anyone — Jew or non-Jew, Israeli, American, or Saudi, black, white, yellow or purple — can be a Zionist.
Writing after “Operation Moses” was revealed, William Safire noted:
“…For the first time in history, thousands of black people are being brought to a country not in chains but in dignity, not as slaves but as citizens.”18
By contrast, the Arab states define citizenship strictly by native parentage. It is almost impossible to become a naturalized citizen in many Arab states, especially Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Several Arab nations have laws that facilitate the naturalization of foreign Arabs, with the specific exception of Palestinians. Jordan, on the other hand, instituted its own “law of return” in 1954, according citizenship to all former residents of Palestine, except for Jews.19
To single out Jewish self-determination for condemnation is itself a form of racism. When approached by a student at Harvard in 1968 who attacked Zionism, Martin Luther King responded: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.”20
The 1975 UN resolution was part of the Soviet-Arab Cold War anti-Israel campaign. Almost all the former non-Arab supporters of the resolution have apologized and changed their positions. When the General Assembly voted to repeal the resolution in 1991, only some Arab and Muslim states, as well as Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam were opposed.
MYTH
“The delegates of the UN World Conference Against Racism agreed that Zionism is racism.”
FACT
In 2001, Arab nations again were seeking to delegitimize Israel by trying to equate Zionism with racism at the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. The United States joined Israel in boycotting the conference when it became clear that rather than focus on the evils of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia that were supposed to be the subject of the event, the conference had turned into a forum for bashing Israel.
The United States withdrew its delegation “to send a signal to the freedom loving nations of the world that we will not stand by, if the world tries to describe Zionism as racism. That is as wrong as wrong can be.” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleisher added that “the President is proud to stand by Israel and by the Jewish community and send a signal that no group around the world will meet with international acceptance and respect if its purpose is to equate Zionism with racism.”21
MYTH
“The Zionists could have chosen another country besides Palestine.”
FACT
In the late 19th century, the rise of religious and racist anti-Semitism led to a resurgence of pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, shattering promises of equality and tolerance. This stimulated Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe.
Simultaneously, a wave of Jews immigrated to Palestine from Yemen, Morocco, Iraq and Turkey. These Jews were unaware of Theodor Herzl’s political Zionism or of European pogroms. They were motivated by the centuries-old dream of the “Return to Zion” and a fear of intolerance. Upon hearing that the gates of Palestine were open, they braved the hardships of travel and went to the Land of Israel.
The Zionist ideal of a return to Israel has profound religious roots. Many Jewish prayers speak of Jerusalem, Zion and the Land of Israel. The injunction not to forget Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, is a major tenet of Judaism. The Hebrew language, the Torah, laws in the Talmud, the Jewish calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Jews pray toward Jerusalem and recite the words “next year in Jerusalem” every Passover. Jewish religion, culture and history make clear that it is only in the land of Israel that the Jewish commonwealth can be built.
In 1897, Jewish leaders formally organized the Zionist political movement, calling for the restoration of the Jewish national home in Palestine, where Jews could find sanctuary and self-determination, and work for the renascence of their civilization and culture.
MYTH
“Herzl himself proposed Uganda as the Jewish state as an alternative to Palestine.”
FACT
Theodor Herzl sought support from the great powers for the creation of a Jewish homeland. He turned to Great Britain, and met with Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary and others. The British agreed, in principle, to Jewish settlement in East Africa.
At the Sixth Zionist Congress at Basle on August 26, 1903, Herzl proposed the British Uganda Program as a temporary emergency refuge for Jews in Russia in immediate danger. While Herzl made it clear that this program would not affect the ultimate aim of Zionism, a Jewish entity in the Land of Israel, the proposal aroused a storm at the Congress and nearly led to a split in the Zionist movement. The Jewish Territorialist Organization (ITO) was formed as a result of the unification of various groups who had supported Herzl’s Uganda proposals during the period 1903-1905. The Uganda Program, which never had much support, was formally rejected by the Zionist movement at the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905.
MYTH
“All Arabs opposed the Balfour Declaration, seeing it as a betrayal of their rights.”
FACT
Emir Faisal, son of Sherif Hussein, the leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, signed an agreement with Chaim Weizmann and other Zionist leaders during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. It acknowledged the “racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people” and concluded that “the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab states and Palestine.” Furthermore, the agreement looked to the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration and called for all necessary measures “…to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil.”22
Faisal had conditioned his acceptance of the Balfour Declaration on the fulfillment of British wartime promises of independence to the Arabs. These were not kept.
Critics dismiss the Weizmann-Faisal agreement because it was never enacted; however, the fact that the leader of the Arab nationalist movement and the Zionist movement could reach an understanding is significant because it demonstrated that Jewish and Arab aspirations were not necessarily mutually exclusive.
MYTH
“The Zionists made no effort to compromise with the Arabs.”
FACT
In 1913, the Zionist leadership recognized the desirability of reaching an agreement with the Arabs. Sami Hochberg, owner of the newspaper, Le-Jeune-Turc, informally represented the Zionists in a meeting with the Cairo-based Decentralization Party and the anti-Ottoman Beirut Reform Society and was able to reach an agreement. This “entente verbale” led to the adoption of a resolution assuring Jews equal rights under a decentralized government. Hochberg also secured an invitation to the First Arab Congress held in Paris in June 1913.
The Arab Congress proved to be surprisingly receptive to Zionist aspirations. Hochberg was encouraged by the Congress’s favorable response to the entente verbale. Abd-ul-Hamid Yahrawi, the President of the Congress, summed up the attitude of the delegates:
All of us, both Muslims and Christians, have the best of feelings toward the Jews. When we spoke in our resolutions about the rights and obligations of the Syrians, this covered the Jews as well. Because they are our brothers in race and we regard them as Syrians who were forced to leave the country at one time but whose hearts always beat together with ours, we are certain that our Jewish brothers the world over will know how to help us so that our common interests may succeed and our common country will develop both materially and morally (author’s emphasis).23
The entente verbale Hochberg negotiated was rendered ineffectual by wartime developments. The outspoken Arab opposition to the Balfour Declaration convinced the Zionist leadership of the need to make a more concerted effort to reach an understanding with the Arabs.
Chaim Weizmann considered the task important enough to lead a Zionist Commission to Palestine to explain the movement’s aims to the Arabs. Weizmann went first to Cairo in March 1918 and met with Said Shukeir, Dr. Faris Nimr and Suleiman Bey Nassif (Syrian Arab nationalists who had been chosen by the British as representatives). He stressed the desire to live in harmony with the Arabs in a British Palestine.
Weizmann’s diplomacy was successful. Nassif said “there was room in Palestine for another million inhabitants without affecting the position of those already there.”24 Dr. Nimr disseminated information through his Cairo newspaper to dispel the Arab public’s misconceptions about Zionist aims.25
In 1921, Winston Churchill tried to arrange a meeting between Palestinians and Zionists. On November 29, 1921, the two sides met, but no progress was made becaue the Arabs insisted that the Balfour Declaration be abrogated.26
Weizmann led a group of Zionists that met with Syrian nationalist Riad al-Sulh in 1921. The Zionists agreed to support Arab nationalist aspirations and Sulh said he was willing to recognize the Jewish National Home. The talks resumed a year later and raised hopes for an agreement. In May 1923, however, Sulh’s efforts to convince Palestinian Arab leaders that Zionism was an accomplished fact were rejected.27
Over the next 25 years, Zionist leaders inside and outside Palestine would try repeatedly to negotiate with the Arabs. Similarly, Israeli leaders since 1948 have sought peace treaties with the Arab states, but Egypt and Jordan are the only nations that have signed them.
MYTH
“The Zionists were colonialist tools of Western imperialism.”
FACT
“Colonialism means living by exploiting others,” Yehoshofat Harkabi has written. “But what could be further from colonialism than the idealism of city-dwelling Jews who strive to become farmers and laborers and to live by their own work?”28
Moreover, as British historian Paul Johnson noted, Zionists were hardly tools of imperialists given the powers’ general opposition to their cause. “Everywhere in the West, the foreign offices, defense ministries and big business were against the Zionists.”29
Emir Faisal also saw the Zionist movement as a companion to the Arab nationalist movement, fighting against imperialism, as he explained in a letter to Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter on March 3, 1919, one day after Chaim Weizmann presented the Zionist case to the Paris conference. Faisal wrote:
The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement….We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home….We are working together for a reformed and revised Near East and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is nationalist and not imperialist. And there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other (emphasis added).30
“Our settlers do not come here as do the colonists from the Occident to have natives do their work for them; they themselves set their shoulders to the plow and they spend their strength and their blood to make the land fruitful. But it is not only for ourselves that we desire its fertility. The Jewish farmers have begun to teach their brothers, the Arab farmers, to cultivate the land more intensively; we desire to teach them further: together with them we want to cultivate the land — to ’serve’ it, as the Hebrew has it. The more fertile this soil becomes, the more space there will be for us and for them. We have no desire to dispossess them: we want to live with them. We do not want to dominate them: we want to serve with them…..”
— Martin Buber31
In the 1940s, the Jewish underground movements waged an anti-colonial war against the British. The Arabs, meanwhile, were concerned primarily with fighting the Jews rather than expelling the British imperialists.
MYTH
“The British promised the Arabs independence in Palestine in the Hussein-MacMahon Correspondence.”
FACT
The central figure in the Arab nationalist movement at the time of World War I was Hussein ibn ‘Ali, who was appointed by the Turkish Committee of Union and Progress to the position of Sherif of Mecca in 1908. As Sherif, Hussein was responsible for the custody of Islam’s shrines in the Hejaz and, consequently, was recognized as one of the Muslims’ spiritual leaders.
In July 1915, Hussein sent a letter to Sir Henry MacMahon, the High Commissioner for Egypt, informing him of the terms for Arab participation in the war against the Turks.
The letters between Hussein and MacMahon that followed outlined the areas that Britain was prepared to cede to the Arabs. The Hussein-MacMahon correspondence conspicuously fails to mention Palestine. The British argued the omission had been intentional, thereby justifying their refusal to grant the Arabs independence in Palestine after the war.32 MacMahon explained:
I feel it my duty to state, and I do so definitely and emphatically, that it was not intended by me in giving this pledge to King Hussein to include Palestine in the area in which Arab independence was promised. I also had every reason to believe at the time that the fact that Palestine was not included in my pledge was well understood by King Hussein.33
Nevertheless, the Arabs held then, as now, that the letters constituted a promise of independence for the Arabs.
Text of Letters
MYTH
“The Arabs fought for freedom in World Wars I and II.”
FACT
Contrary to the romantic fiction of the period, most of the Arabs did not fight with the Allies against the Turks in World War I. David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, noted that most Arabs fought for their Turkish rulers. Faisal’s supporters in Arabia were the exception.
In World War II, the Arabs were very slow to enter the war against Hitler. Only Transjordan went along with the British in 1939. Iraq was taken over by pro-Nazis in 1941 and joined the Axis powers. Most of the Arab states sat on the fence, waiting until 1945 to see who would win. By then, Germany was doomed and, since it was necessary to join the war to qualify for membership in the nascent United Nations, the Arabs belatedly began to declare war against Germany in 1945: Egypt, on February 25; Syria, on February 27; Lebanon, on February 28; and Saudi Arabia, on March 2. By contrast, some 30,000 Palestinian Jews fought against Nazi Germany.
MYTH
“Israeli policies cause anti-Semitism.”
FACT
Anti-Semitism has existed for centuries, well before the rise of the modern State of Israel. Rather than Israel being the cause of anti-Semitism, it is more likely that the distorted media coverage of Israeli policies is reinforcing latent anti-Semitic views.
As writer Leon Wieseltier observed, “the notion that all Jews are responsible for whatever any Jews do is not a Zionist notion. It is an anti-Semitic notion.” Wieseltier adds that attacks on Jews in Europe have nothing whatsoever to do with Israel. To blame Jews for anti-Semitism is similar to saying blacks are responsible for racism.
Many Jews may disagree with policies of a particular Israeli government, but this does not mean that Israel is bad for the Jews. As Wieseltier noted, “Israel is not bad for the Jews of Russia, who may need a haven; or for the Jews of Argentina, who may need a haven; or for any Jews who may need a haven.”34
As noted in the fact about criticism of Israel, taking issue with Israeli policies is acceptable if you do so because you believe that a) Israel has the right to exist, and b) that changes will make Israel a better place. In fact, such criticism, by Israelis, can be found in the Israeli media every day. Criticism crosses the line, however, when it delegitimizes Israel and is intended to weaken rather than strengthen its institutions.
“Israel is the only state in the world today, and the Jews the only people in the world today, that are the object of a standing set of threats from governmental, religious, and terrorist bodies seeking their destruction. And what is most disturbing is the silence, the indifference, and sometimes even the indulgence, in the face of such genocidal anti-Semitism.”
— Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General Irwin Cotler35
MYTH
“Supporters of Israel only criticize Arabs and never Israelis.”
FACT
Israel is not perfect. Even the most committed friends of Israel acknowledge that the government sometimes makes mistakes, and that it has not solved all the problems in its society. Supporters of Israel may not emphasize these faults, however, because there is no shortage of groups and individuals who are willing to do nothing but focus on Israel’s imperfections. The public usually has much less access to Israel’s side of the story of its conflict with the Arabs, or the positive aspects of its society.
Israelis themselves are their own harshest critics. If you want to read criticism of Israeli behavior, you do not need to seek out anti-Israel sources, you can pick up any Israeli newspaper and find no shortage of news and commentary critical of government policy. The rest of the world’s media provides constant attention to Israel and the coverage is far more likely to be unfavorable than complimentary.
Myths and Facts also pulls no punches when it comes to addressing Israel’s responsibilities for events and policies that tarnish its image, including Israel’s role in the Palestinian refugee problem, the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, and social and economic inequalities between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel.
Israel’s supporters believe Israel has a right to exist and that close relations between Israel and other nations in the world is in everyone’s best interest. When friends criticize Israel, it is because they want the country to be better. Israel’s detractors do not have that goal; they are more interested in delegitimizing the country, placing a wedge between Israel and its allies, and working toward its destruction.
Friends of Israel do not try to whitewash the truth, but they do try to put events in proper context. That is also our goal.
Notes
1Dan Bahat, ed. Twenty Centuries of Jewish Life in the Holy Land, (Jerusalem: The Israel Economist, 1976), pp. 61-63.
2New York Times, (November 18, 1981).
3Yehoshua Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918-1929, (London: Frank Cass, 1974), p. 4.
4Max Dimont, Jews, God and History, (NY: Signet, 1962), pp. 49-53.
5Moshe Kohn, “The Arabs’ ‘Lie’ of the Land,” Jerusalem Post, (October 18, 1991).
6Yehoshua Porath, Palestinian Arab National Movement: From Riots to Rebellion: 1929-1939, vol. 2, (London: Frank Cass and Co., Ltd., 1977), pp. 81-82.
7Moshe Kohn, “The Arabs’ ‘Lie’ of the Land,” Jerusalem Post, (October 18, 1991).
8Avner Yaniv, PLO, (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Study Group of Middle Eastern Affairs, August 1974), p. 5.
9Al-Qibla, (March 23, 1918), quoted in Samuel Katz, Battleground-Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, (NY: Bantam Books, 1977), p. 128.
10British Government, Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry, 1946, Part VI, (April 20, 1946).
10aBernard Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice, (New York: Norton, 1999), p. 186.
11Howard Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 129.
12Ben Halpern, The Idea of a Jewish State, (MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 108.
13Palestine Royal Commission Report, p. 233.
14Palestine Royal Commission Report, pp. 259-260.
15Neville Mandel, “Attempts at an Arab-Zionist Entente: 1913-1914,” Middle Eastern Studies, (April 1965), p. 243.
16Al-Qibla, (March 23, 1918), quoted in Samuel Katz, Battleground-Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, (NY: Bantam Books, 1977), p. 128.
17Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, (London, 1881).
18New York Times, (January 7, 1985).
19Jordanian Nationality Law, Article 3(3) of Law No. 6 of 1954, Official Gazette, No. 1171, February 16, 1954.
20Seymour Martin Lipset, “The Socialism of Fools-The Left, the Jews and Israel,” Encounter, (December 1969), p. 24.
21White House briefing regarding U.S. threat to boycott the UN Conference on racism, (July 27, 2001).
22Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, (NY: Schocken Books, 1966), pp. 246-247; Howard Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 121.
23Aharon Cohen, Israel and the Arab World, (NY: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970), p. 97.
24Jon Kimche, There Could Have Been Peace: The Untold Story of Why We Failed With Palestine and Again With Israel, (England: Dial Press, 1973), pp. 136-137.
25Aharon Cohen, Israel and the Arab World, (NY: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970), p. 71-73.
26Yehoshua Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918-1929, (London: Frank Cass, 1974), pp. 65-67.
27Yehoshua Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918-1929, (London: Frank Cass, 1974), pp. 112-114.
28Yehoshofat Harkabi, Palestinians And Israel, (Jerusalem: Keter, 1974), p. 6.
29Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties, (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 485.
30Samuel Katz, Battleground-Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, (NY: Bantam Books, 1977), p. 55.
31From an open letter from Martin Buber to Mahatma Gandhi in 1939, quoted in Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea, (PA: Jewish Publications Society, 1997), p. 464.
32George Kirk, A Short History of the Middle East, (NY: Frederick Praeger Publishers, 1964), p. 314.
33London Times, (July 23, 1937).
34Leon Wieseltier, “Israel, Palestine, and the Return of the Binational Fantasy,” The New Republic, (October 24, 2003).
35Jerusalem Post, (February 5, 2004).
September 25th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
If SM is talking about Israel or Andalus depends on how the story goes ..
The Muslim withdrawal from Andalus was in 1492 .. the Israelis are still there
September 25th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
You could be talking about Timor Leste… or anticipating the formation of Kurdistan… or any number of the Yugoslav shards.
September 25th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Destructive Y, the muslims withdrew after 8 centuries of occupation. Israel isn’t even 60 years old!
September 25th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
I believe SM is talking about both.
However, the general rule I’ve noticed is that once something becomes “Arab Land” it stays “Arab Land” even if they are kicked out. Andalus is a perfect example of this as it was “conquered” by the Moors and then reclaimed and yet jihadi’s still cite it as “Muslim land” which is patent BS.
By that definition, all of Europe is American / Allied land as is the Middle East, Asia, etc. Anywhere that the Allies defeated the Axis powers in WWII is Allied territory using the same logic of the whole “Andalus is muslim land” crowd.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
If you look at in a grand scale historical sense, the Arabs (or rather Arab culture, since the people are mostly the same old) themselves are relative newcomers (1300 something years) in the areas we now know as Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and so on. Or maybe I’m the only know who sees history that way?
In Muhammed’s time Arabs only lived in the Arabian Peninsula and in a few city states just north of it like Petra and Palmyra (Tadmor).
As a Lebanese my ancestors were semitic just like the Arabs, but they weren’t Arabs. (Disclaimer: I’m talking about culture, because I couldn’t care less about race.)
Now, as for the above, I think it describes both Israel and Andalus to a certain degree, and that was a well crafted point. Unfortunately, Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood (and particularly their Palestinian chapter Hamas) see things differently, and to them any area ever ruled by Muslims (including Spain) will forever be “Muslim land” that they must fight to “reclaim”.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Both! Or in fact any other occupying force whether it be Arab, Israeli, American or Australian. The patterns repeat themselves throughout the ages, regardless of religion, race or continent.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Well, then I guess that Mohamed Abdallah Mahmoud Ibrahim Abdelwahed Hussein Tarek Suleiman Yasser Abdel Samad Hassan Nasrallah will be a very happy person.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
All I know is I am tired of hearing crybabies whine about Israel. Most Muslim countries were demarked by the British in the last 100 years anyway, so who the hell are they to cry about the “illigitimacy” of Israel?
Israel did not take the land by force, they BOUGHT crap-land and turned it profitable, and then the arabs tried to steal it back. At least Israel was approved by the UN at the time.
Arabs and Muslims in general can only wich to live with the freedom, rights and standards of living that muslims in Israel enjoy.
I don’t think I am alone in getting tired of it. Other than the western far-left, most of us have no pity for muslims/arabs for the messes that they make for themselves and all the complaining that it is the jew’s fault. After all, if jews are monkeys and pigs, what sort of low animal are those who claim to be perpetually repressed by them?
September 25th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
interesting history lectures from many sides here ey? baaaaaaaaaa
I think SM is talking about Sudan =p
September 25th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Andalusia.
- Israel made people of the _second_ religion (Islam) to enjoy more healthcare, freedom and prosperity;
- Israel beginning was “back to roots” and a bit Socialist rather then Imperialist. Imperialists want to be conquerors or businessmen, and make others to work. Zionists were abandoning businesses to work on the land.
- Zionists started from buying land, not conquering it. There would be no violence at all of not for Husseini mafia.
- Restriction on religious freedoms in Israel? Yes if you consider Atheism a religion (no sarcasm).
September 25th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
#7: helpful contribution, James.
SM: I think you’re describing Andalusia, but in a way that will seem reminiscent of Israel.
The giveaway: “imperialist nature”. This is a difficult charge to level against Israel, and I think only anti-semites plus the wackier contingent amongst marxists would attempt it.
September 25th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
Dick,
To be fair, there are those who have dreamed of a Greater Israel, which would include the Sinai and other stuff. But now I think the Palestinians are viewed with such utter distaste by the majority of Israelis that the dreamers have stopped dreaming.
And incidentally, IMHO, there is more religious freedom in Israel for Muslims than there is for Jews. I could back that up if I had time, but I have to go, so I’ll leave it to others.
September 25th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
And yes, James #7,
In the future, a link to a website would be better than cutting and pasting a large block of text.
September 25th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
I’m guessing that since you never mentioned how much was paid by the Baron de Rothshild, De Haas, and Wolfsohn for land that was pretty much barren at the time and how those prices were paid in full that you’re not talking about Israel. I’m going with the theory that if you were talking about Israel you would have mentioned the fact that Israel has agreed to numerous plans to chop up the land, only to be shot down by Arafat and his predecessors. So, my guess is: not Israel.
September 25th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
I know what sandmonkey means.
He wants to say that, they are both the same.
They’re both very similar, you wouldn’t know the difference.
The one who lives in a glass house, shouldn’t throw stones at others.
Right monkey?
September 25th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
Bugger all that - we just had haYore (first rain of the season) in Tel Aviv! Wheeeeeee!
*The Raccon jumps around in the puddles*
September 25th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
WTF, ‘coon! The prayer for rain isn’t for a coupla weeks!
September 25th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Hey, mutha nature apparently doesn’t care too much for when we’re supposed to pray. The rain came down, the Raccoon is happy, and the city is clean! I am getting high just from the smell of it
But hey, we had a relatively mild summer (only two weeks of hamsin, no ovech at all). Doesn’t surprise me that we have an early Yore. Here’s hoping it bids well for this winter!
September 25th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
There’s been a lot of debate here about who was there first or who lived in Israel the longest.
Instead, I think we should deal with facts on the ground that have existed now for several generations. Which is not the same as creating NEW facts on the ground!
True a lot of Arabs were expelled or left of their own accord in 1947-9. And the common strand of thought in the (Arab) Middle East is that they should be allowed to “return.”
Why? Why should the be allowed to return? In Europe around the same time as the Israeli war of Independence, millions of people were displaced in post WW2 Europe in a massive wave of ethnic cleansing. Many were Germans facing brutal retribution, but there were also Hungarians, Romanians, Italians, Poles and Ukranians.
There are movements in modern day Germany demanding their return, but unlike in the Middle East, these movements are by and large on the fringe.
That’s because in Europe, efforts were made to integrate the refugees and their grandchildren have zero interest in going to a place they have no affinity for….
…unlike in the Middle East, where the Palestinians were kept in camps by their Arab host states, denied citizenship and told in no uncertain terms that their ‘home’ is elsewhere.
Small wonder that their grand children, living in those same camps, still clutch faded pictures of Lod, Haifa etc and demand some kind of “return” to places they have never seen
September 25th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
indiginous population
The Berbers are cro-Magnoid Europeans, I.E They hailed from The Iberian Peninsula, while the spaniards living on the Iberian Peninsula where Aryanized by germanic tribes to the East of Iberia.
September 25th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Technically we where their first and we are indigonous to iberia, we Migrated to coastal north Africa during the ice age, so Basically we where just coming back home. The Oppressor is The Spaniard. He is not of the Cro-Magnoid European Race. to this day no Aryan Europeans are being oppressed The Basques primarly and The berbers in Northern Morroco, which is currently under Aryan Spaniard Control.
September 25th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
James, thank you for your post, very informative and historically accurate.I am glad that you posted it as you did because it contains such important and insightful information. Thanks
My son reminded me the other day that every single border in the world represents the resolution of a conflict or negotiation.
It is true that Muslims have freedoms in Israel that they do not enjoy elsewhere. Also, many Israelis go out of their way to buy from Arab stores and vendors in order to be supportive of them. My daughter drug me all over the place for that purpose when I visited over Winter Break last year. Arab-Israelis are integrated into the social life of Israel and not kept penned up in camps as they are in some Arab nations. Perhaps many people who hate Israel do not realize this.
September 26th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Intresting Blog:)
keep up the good work
September 26th, 2006 at 2:31 am
I am struggling to think of a place that Sandmonkey isn’t talking about in this post. It could be Americas. It could be Muslim conquest spreading from the Arabian peninsula.
Perhaps there is one country that Sandmonkey isn’t talking about: Israel. To start with Israel wasn’t established “due to their religious beliefs”. Secondly I don’t believe that any of Israel’s neighbours seriously “fear that they will try to take over more of their neighbouring lands”.
I actually think that the neighbours want Israel to take over their lands and that is why they keep attacking Israel knowing full well how such attacks end.
September 26th, 2006 at 2:45 am
Up until 1945, when the UN Charter knocked it on the head, there was a thing called Right By Conquest. If you took it, it was yours. Understandably it would never do these days to have such a principle but it certainly would have removed a lot of bother with people telling you to give land back.
And it is worth pointing out that nearly every country in the world is populated by people who took that land from some other people at some point in time.
Maybe we just get used to it. And rather than go for half measures, countries should either give conquered land back at the end of hostilities or make it part of their own. Half measures are a bit silly. http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1245
September 26th, 2006 at 3:18 am
James Bootross, I know you mean well, but quoting from Myths and Facts isn’t going to work. As DrM over at altmuslim.com put it to me once - not realizing the implications of what he said - it’s what Muslims are supposed to believe that matters, not the aactual facts themselves. It’s been that way since al-Ghamzi, I think: the conscious rejection of science and fact in favor of religious correctness. Many Arabs who are secularized dictators still seem to follow in that path, hence the support of dictators through their personality cults.
Telling most people the blatant truth just annoys them and closes their minds - they don’t want to remember, ever, how much they owe to others, how little they are really worth, and how much their ego is unduly and unjustly inflated to exaggerated proportions. Just think of all the modern inventions Arabs are responsible for, what their political innovations have achieved, and how they have raised the social consciousness of the entire world!
September 26th, 2006 at 4:16 am
To Uragan: I agree completely.
September 26th, 2006 at 4:20 am
If you look at historical facts, the most probable situation was that both modern day Jews and Palestinians are descendants of both the original Canaanites and the original Hebrews. Given the number of foreign invasions by Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, Hellenized Egyptians and Syrians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, and the population transfers associates with them, one can be safe in figuring that the current population of both Jews and Palestinians has ancestors among all those people as well.
One should also remember that many Jews converted to Christianity under Byzantine rule, and the descendants of these people converted to Islam after the Arab conquest, and plenty of modern day Palestinians can doubtless trace their ancestry to these folks. IOW, the Palestinians are really descendants of the Jews!
September 26th, 2006 at 4:50 am
Jeffrey,
But the Jews are the descendents of apes and pigs, so that means that the Palestinians…uh oh.
September 26th, 2006 at 5:11 am
The Berbers are cro-Magnoid Europeans, I.E They hailed from The Iberian Peninsula, while the spaniards living on the Iberian Peninsula where Aryanized by germanic tribes to the East of Iberia.
One of those things that makes you say “WTF!?”
Please tell me you weren’t educated in the United States.
September 26th, 2006 at 5:15 am
Can someone remind James Botroos when he throws up next time to clean up after himself.
September 26th, 2006 at 5:32 am
#35 Craig,
I think our Lybian Warrior meant something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cro-Magnon. Perhaps used to illustrate a possible 60,000 years of occupation of Andalusia. However, if so, it is possible that modern Berbers have only a 4% claim to European genes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber) so that 60, 000 years would not be from them. Or not anymore at any rate.
September 26th, 2006 at 5:57 am
#18
“The giveaway: “imperialist nature”. This is a difficult charge to level against Israel, and I think only anti-semites plus the wackier contingent amongst marxists would attempt it.”
Just a question. Why is it “anti-semite” or “marxist/communist” to consider Israel to have a “imperialist nature”? I stumble upon these opinions quite often here and I don’t see the logical connection. I’m not saying that Israel is imperialist in nature, but this sort of argumentation is just pure dumb. Look up “ad hominem”.
September 26th, 2006 at 6:19 am
The comparison of Israel with Andalus is one that I make often when speaking with surrendering pacifists to demonstrate how history has no end.
The Moors who ruled Andalusia for 800 years are no longer there. Palestinians and Arabs should continue their strife to reclaim the whole of the land of Palestine. No hard feelings towards anyone. There’s no reason to say game-over at any given point in history and that we should accept the status quo ad infintum.
People’s displacing each other on lands is a process that’s been happening since the dawn of humanity with so many examples in history. Still, it’s a nation’s obligation to try survive on their land. Fifty years is not much.
Contrary to what anon says, the land of Palestine was never the national land of European Jews, nor for African Jews, nor for Indian Jews, nor for Russian Christians who tore their identity papers and claimed to be Jews just to flee their original country.
There is no single national identity for Jews from around the world. it’s like saying Moslems from Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Indonesia and Chechen should conquer Arabia and claim it theirs! Not that I’d care if they do, but it has no impenetrable foundation as Zionists claim theirs is.
The claim that “the land was sparsely inhabited and no country was in place” is an atrocity! For example, 95% of Egypt’s land is sparsely inhabited. Does that constitute a right for a foreign nation to colonise it? Or keep Egypt out of it and take Australia as an example of a country whose land is sparsely inhabited.
As for the “no country was in place” part of the atrocity; what exactly is your definition of Country if not a group of people living in a place that is not claimed by another country as being part of it? Are there special licenses to be obtained for a country to be one! Add to that that this area was in turmoil between an empire going out and a nation-sate forming.
And if you consider it to be part of greater Syria as one commentator later said, then it’s the same result.
Andrew, Palestine is an Arab land because it’s inhabitants have been Arabs all along even when they changed their religion from ancient to Judaism to Christianity to Islam, and even when they were conquered by Romans or Persians. On the other hand comparing in one sentence Jewish/Christian/Moslem to Roman/Turkish is like comparing mangos to cucumbers: One set is of religions while the other is of nationalities.
Aramites, Canaanites, Phonicians are all part of a greater family that includes Arabs, but doesn’t not include Poles or Germans. at least not in its 20000-year-old branches.
Arab Jews have the right to be on the land of Palestine just as Moslem or Christian Palestinians do. Polish Jews have no right to be on that land Just as Polish or French Christians or Algerian Moslems don’t.
The part on Mediterranean Philistines people is historically sound in what James wrote about the ancient history of the area. However he didn’t mention that the Philistines adopted the culture of the earlier *Semitic* [with reservation] peoples who’ve been on the land before them. It is those Philistines and other Semitic peoples whom the Hebrews coming from Egypt had to fight with to find a place for themselves on the land. Hebrews are not the only Semitic people, you know. Centuries before that when the legendary sons of Jacob fled the area for Egypt, the Hebrews as a nation had not formed yet and were part of a greater Canaanite peoples.
A Bootroos wrote:
“By contrast, no serious historian questions the more than 3,000-year-old Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, or the modern Jewish people’s relation to the ancient Hebrews.”
Historical, Toratic Jews later became the Arab Jews. Taken by their conquers to Mesopotamia, many stayed there and in Persia, some returned to Syria and Palestine, legends say that some had fled to the west coast of India before that and left traces of them on the coast of the Persian Gulf. But mostly they lived in the Arab World. Some kept their faith, some converted, some dissolved, or migrated; increased in numbers when ancient kingdoms converted to Judaism in Arabia Felix and flowed into the African Horn; and decreased when new religions became more fashionable; went centuries later with the Moslems to Andalusia and were later kicked out of it with them; returned to north Africa or Syria or dispersed in Europe; became Ottoman citizens and settled wherever the empire ruled.
But the bulk of modern Jews and the whole of the Eastern European Jewish population descend from the west Asian nation of AlKhazar that converted wholly to Judaism in the 8th century!
All of that is ancient history on which we cannot depend to settle rights in modern times.
Back to the argument of the flux of nations along history, there’s no right or wrong to it, nor permanent rights. Just possibilities, some of which become realities.
Zionists successfully accomplished a generations-long project to take that land for themselves. that’s a reality.
Palestinians and Arabs could, and should, do the same to reclaim it back and make that a reality, even if takes generations.
Godly promises to semi-legendary chieftains make no difference to me.
September 26th, 2006 at 7:29 am
Alif, your post seems to me a recipe for neverending rivers of blood.
If we extend your thesis, then we should expel the tens of thousands of European Muslims who, according to your logic, have “no right” to be in Europe, rush their children and youths to countries they have seen only on TV because “fifty years is not much”, then take into account the wish of Palestinians to reclaim “their” land and make sure that Israel doesn’t show anymore the self-restraint is obeys now.
I hope we won’t need such a solution.
September 26th, 2006 at 7:30 am
I agree with Alif, if you want it then attempt to take it.
And if you fail, and there were adverse consequences, then that was all part of the attempt.
September 26th, 2006 at 7:44 am
As for the “no country was in place” part of the atrocity; what exactly is your definition of Country if not a group of people living in a place that is not claimed by another country as being part of it? Are there special licenses to be obtained for a country to be one!
Yes. It’s called “sovereignty” - you should look into the concept sometime. You can’t have a state without it. There has never been a time when somebody ELSE, besides Palestinians, claimed sovereignty over that piece of land. More importantly, there has never been a time when Palestinians *did*.
If you feel otherwise, please present your evidence. I myself would be interested in hearing it. But please make sure it’s factual and not just the way you wish it to be.
September 26th, 2006 at 8:39 am
You had me fooled Sandy, I thought you were writing about New England
September 26th, 2006 at 8:47 am
p.s. On further reflection Sandy, you might be talking about the Roman province of Britannia fifteen centuries ago, what we call ‘England” or Land of the Angles, nowadays.
Or maybe you meant Mexico? Or Peru? Or all of what is now Turkey? Or what used to be called Persia by the Zoroastrians? or Pakistan, which used to be called Sindh by its hindu population? or……..
September 26th, 2006 at 9:12 am
Big up the Bootross - comment 7.
GAZA - עזה
I though SM was talking about Gaza, where Jews lived for over 3000 years until last year when they voluntarily left the jungle.
September 26th, 2006 at 9:28 am
forcing many of the indiginous population to flee to the neighbouring countries
Andalusia. The Israelis did not and do not force people out (other than in the direct course of a war.) Some Egyptians (Palestinians being if I remember right, Egyptian in origin-wasn’t Yasser born in Cairo?) simply refuse to accept the very idea of sharing breathing space with someone who a) isn’t their “kind” and b) wants to be treated as an equal, not an inferior. A state was on offer since 1948-it was rejected then and is being rejected now by the majority of Egyptian transplants (rejects?) who consider subjugation of another race more important than their own well-being.
September 26th, 2006 at 9:43 am
“Just a question. Why is it “anti-semite” or “marxist/communist” to consider Israel to have a “imperialist nature”?”
Can you give an example of an actual anti-semitic statement?
If claiming that Israel is something bad which it simply is not is not anti-semitic, what is?
“I stumble upon these opinions quite often here and I don’t see the logical connection.”
There is none. It just happens to be anti-semitism when one believes bad and false things about Jews. Just like it is racist to believe that blacks are stupid (or that a black country is dumb, against all evidence) and intolerant to believe that homosexuals are sissies.
“I’m not saying that Israel is imperialist in nature, but this sort of argumentation is just pure dumb. Look up “ad hominem”.”
Ad hominem is to call Israel “imperialist” when it isn’t. It’s an argument directed at the person (or people in this case) rather than the facts.
September 26th, 2006 at 9:47 am
“Zionists successfully accomplished a generations-long project to take that land for themselves. that’s a reality.”
Yes. Just like they did before and the Babylonians after them. And the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Turks, and the British.
“Palestinians and Arabs could, and should, do the same to reclaim it back and make that a reality, even if takes generations.”
Sure, if they like war more than peace. At least some of the groups supporting the “Palestinian cause” are honest enough to admitt that the “Palestinian cause” is to throw the Jews into the sea and finally remove them from the middle east.
Do you think it will be necessary for all the other groups to “reclaim it back” also or can we end this game at some point?
(Where should the Jews live? In Arab countries?)
“Godly promises to semi-legendary chieftains make no difference to me.”
It’s in the Quran. It’s in the Bible too. But there are very few believers left, especially among self-proclaimed Muslims.
It takes faith to believe these promises to semi-legendary chieftains. Who has enough faith?
Do Muslims have enough faith?
September 26th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Alif -
Ye Gods, not the post-Nazi neo-eugenics again…
Jews are an ethnicity. Capicce? Despite the differences between Ashkenazi and Sepharadi Jews, we are one people, regardless of religion.
I never understood why is that so many Muslims and psychotic Lefties just can’t comprehend it, and push their weird agenda that there are no Jews, only Judaism.
Sieg Heil!
*spot*
September 26th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
*spit*, even.
September 26th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1035111282729232040&sourceid=docidfeed&hl=en
I thought we are the Cromagnon people !
September 26th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
#51, Racoon,
euh, even the french ones are yours !
September 26th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Nomad -
Mine, all MIIIIIIIIINEEEEE! Bwuahahahahah!
September 26th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
mind you they are communist !
September 26th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Wow Alif, fascinating. So, they should kick the people who were born in Israel, raised in Israel, and have lived there all their lives because you have decided that you don’t like it? According to you all Europeans should go back to Europe, Blacks regardless of whether they’re from the Islands or not should be taken back to Africa, all Arab Muslims should be carted back to their “home” countries (are you maybe hoping for cattle cars as well?) and no one should be allowed to live anywhere but where his/her parents came from. What an exciting picture you do paint. What if you’re half “local” half not? Do you pick a parent? I tell you what, why don’t we do this: Israel keeps all the land it purchased (a point you didn’t address by the way), plus whatever land it won during wars against it? Sound good? We get all of Israel, Gaza, plus the Sinai. 50 years isn’t a long time, here’s to hoping for another 500.
September 26th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
“Andrew, Palestine is an Arab land because it’s inhabitants have been Arabs all along even when they changed their religion from ancient to Judaism to Christianity to Islam, and even when they were conquered by Romans or Persians.”
There are Arab Jews. They live in Israel.
What makes you think that they changed their religion? “Palestine” is the pagan name for the land that was once known as Judaea and Israel and is now known as Israel. It has nothing to do with “Arabs”, except that Arabs were among those who conquered it at one point, as did Turks, Jews, Persians, Babylonians, Romans, and Greeks.
“Palestinian” Arabs can convert to Judaism if they like. It should be simple enough for a population which you claim already converted twice and which finds it important to use the pagan name for the country.
“They have been Arabs all along” is an interesting revisionism. But it is pseudo-history nonetheless. Whether you read the Bible or the Quran or believe archaeology and genetics, the relationship between Arabs and Jews in history is fairly clear.
And it’s not what you here claim it is.
September 26th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Alif:
The theory you quote about Ashkenazim decending from the Khazars was debunked 3 years ago by a few studies of Ashkenazi genetics, which showed that on their male side they decend from Semetic roots (Y-Chromasome). And further, that they are coincedentally more closely related to Arabs from the levant than any other ethnic group. Suprise! Palestinians are descendants of Jews!!! The Khazar theory is a convinient excuss for virulent anti-Jewish racists to attack them (note that racist is reffering to the fact that this theory is used to deligitimixed people based on race). It lived as long as science was unable to verify its claims and now that is has debunked it, only the uneducated and lazy still use it.
September 26th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
Uriel-Shraga -
No, mate, you’re wrong. Only post-Nazi antisemites use it. It’s just another weapon in the hands of the enemies of humanity.
Yes, Alif, that’s you.
September 26th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Uragan,
However, if so, it is possible that modern Berbers have only a 4% claim to European genes
That’s lower than I’d expect, considering the germanic Vandal tribe occupied North Africa in the 4th Century AD (long before the Arabs got there incidentally) - so if we subtract from that 4% European gense of Berbers whatever they picked up from the Vandals, what would be left?
In any case, I wasn’t commenting on his theories of Berber origins, I was commenting on his suppostion that the prototypical Indo-Europeans were not descendants of Cromagnon man. Is he saying that Europeans are not homo sapiens, or what? I’ve seen a lot of racist claims in my time but never anything quite this bizarre
September 26th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
Hmmmm I read an article the other day that had an interesting concept: All living people are related to some degree. The scientists used a mathematical model to prove it. Interesting. I had a family reunion this past summer. Prior to the reunion, many of the male family members (my father’s side) had DNA testing done. The test results showed that in our history we were descendents of a male from Tunisia. We assumed that we were just Scotish or Irish on that side of the family. The report was very detailed and showed the approximate date that this descendent entered our family. It was surprising but not unwelcome news. I think that we would all have some interesting surprises if tested. I think that family and tribal loyalty are carried too far. Who knows what our genetic heritage is? And, does it matter? Our present loyalties and judgements would be better based on what is morally just. . . Well, just an idea.
September 27th, 2006 at 3:53 am
SM, you are talking about none other than Liechtenstein, of course! Those damn Liechtensteiners with their Liechensteinic religion!
September 27th, 2006 at 3:56 am
Libyan Warrior,
The Berbers are cro-Magnoid Europeans, I.E They hailed from The Iberian Peninsula, while the spaniards living on the Iberian Peninsula where Aryanized by germanic tribes to the East of Iberia….
Count on Libyan Warrior for all your pop genetics needs! Factually incorrect, of course, but at least it’s humorous.