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The Palestinian-Israeli question has been a thorn in the world’s side for some time now. And clearly, many people—not just Arabs—sympathize with the uprooted Palestinians. The argument, in a nutshell, is that Israel was forcefully and artificially created and populated by people who, unlike the Arabs, are not truly indigenous to the land of Palestine. Moreover, the “true” inhabitants—the Arabs—have been forcefully ejected, oppressed, not given a “voice,” etc. In a word, the Jews have seized another people’s land.
But it’s somewhat ironic that while the Arabs are crying out for “humanitarian” justice (via the dissolution of Israel), and many non-Arabs want to see them receive it, few consider this matter with the aid of those two disciplines that were originally the backbone of all intellectual discourse and which can truly better elucidate the situation: history and philosophy, or simply, common sense.
Historically, the land of Palestine has been conquered, and conquered, and conquered again—by a myriad of peoples, including Hebrews, Babylonians and Persians, Greeks and Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Turks, and now finally, modern-day Jews. Conquest and “land-grabbing” have always been something of a natural occurrence throughout world-history: lands were conquered and that was the end of it—till the next conqueror came along. In fact, if modern-day Jews have usurped Palestine, so too have the Arabs before them. In the early 7th century, the Arabs, recently unified under the banner of Islam and its Prophet, burst out of Arabia and conquered as many lands as they possibly could—the entire globe being the (currently unrealized) goal. Thus Palestine, originally, was not “Arab” and definitely not “Muslim.” Generally speaking, it was Semitic.
So, if Palestine was forcefully usurped from Christian Byzantium by invading and often ruthless Muslim hordes (who did not ask for or give “humanitarian” justice), how does that make it “officially” and “rightfully” theirs, once and for all? Granted: the Jews too have through the force of arms taken Palestine. But exactly how is that any different than what the Muslim Arabs did nearly 1400 years prior? Nor does the passage of time justify ownership—and even if it did, still the Jews have a greater claim since Palestine was theirs centuries before the Muslim occupation (though the Canaanites might beg to differ). And by our standards of justice, the passage of time never exonerates any crime: many aged men are arrested and brought to justice decades after their original transgression.
Realistically speaking, almost every major nation today—including the U.S.— is a product of one people’s conquest over another. Let us not forget that throughout world-history whole peoples have been either entirely wiped out or assimilated with their conquerors, their names, languages, cultures, and religions relegated to a historical footnote. Today’s countries are peopled by an amalgamation of the descendants of the conquerors and the conquered. So why should one group—Arabs—have a special, “legitimate” case against their conquerors?
Istanbul, what was once known as Constantinople and the jewel of all Christendom, was violently sieged for centuries by its hostile Islamic neighbors, till it fell in 1453, its original Christian inhabitants massacred, and Christianity’s most exalted church, Hagia Sophia, converted into a mosque. (At least the Jews, unlike the Muslims, haven’t converted the al-Aqsa Mosque into a Jewish temple, the former itself built atop the remains of Solomon’s Temple). Thus Palestinians have as much right to Palestine as do the descendants of evicted Christians to Anatolia: but can we imagine that, based on “justice” and “rule of law,” Turkey will give up its hard-earned conquests back to the rightful owners?
Besides Turkey, all of today’s Muslim countries were taken by force and bloody conquest—often from Christian, Zoroastrian, Hindu, or even pagan peoples. Should Muslims, then, in the interest of “humanitarian-justice,” which they constantly evoke in their own cause (while uttering jihad among themselves), withdraw from all those countries? Obviously an impossibility—not least because they have no “true” home that was not taken by force to withdraw to. Even Arabia, home of Islam, was militarily conquered by that religion. Moreover, the original inhabitants who would have a claim to these lands are no more, extinct or assimilated through conversion and Arabization.
Logically, if Israel should cease to be, then so should almost every major nation today. Along with the entire Islamic Nation, Americans should be prepared to pack up and evacuate the U.S., giving it back to the natives; people of Norman-Saxon blood should leave Britain to the Britons; and only Gaelic speakers should flourish in France. Surely this all sounds ridiculous. But exactly how less ridiculous is it for the Palestinians to demand that Israel cease to be—especially when they predicate this demand on things such as “international-justice,” a word that is meaningless for Muslims outside of an Islamic framework, where “justice” is defined by Islamic, not humanitarian nor international, law. And Islamic law says it’s just, indeed, compulsory, for Muslims to seize the infidels’ lands by the sword.
The problem, of course, is that the West is plagued by naïve utopianism. And the Muslim world, ever the realistic entity, is quick to exploit this disease: they call for an unprecedented form of utopian justice, which they know is a naïve West’s soft spot, while among themselves they acknowledge their theological right to conquer the world in the name of Allah. In a “perfect world,” (itself an oxymoron), no nation would ever disturb the sovereignty of another. But even if one group of people can agree to this does not mean all people will reciprocate—even if they are the initial beneficiaries.
The West should beware that utopianism is an intellectual product of power and prosperity—not reality. While power and prosperity always fluctuate at the hands of time and chance, reality is always consistent. And reality, in all its ugliness, has always shown that, in the end, utopian dreams dissipate, and only the strong survive.
Posted by Raymond at July 24, 2008 1:23 PM
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A largely unpopulated area received a desperate people who were returning, joining the Jerusalem majority who had remained. And many Arabs left at the insistence of their leadership.
If the Arabs were Zorastrian, Christian, Buddhist, or Hindu, they would have made a good deal long ago, with general prosperity in the area. Instead, only the Israelis prosper, while the Muslim leadership fulfills the Koranic script, seeking weapons.
Posted by: StillBreathing![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 24, 2008 1:52 PM
Free Constantinople! Free Medina! Free Mecca and every other place from this pathology referred to as Islam.
Posted by: JSobieski at July 24, 2008 2:04 PM
There are many good points in the essay. However, you have granted them far too much by using the word "Palestinian", without an explanation of the 20th century, particularly post 1967, fabrication of this "identity", as part of the Muslim and Arab supremacist Jihad against Israel.
The saint (yes, that is sarcastic) Mohandas Gandhi stated in 1938: "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French." Why didn't Gandhi state: "Palestine belongs to the Palestinians..."?
The simple and correct answer is that there did not exist, and had never existed, in 1938, a collective identity, "Palestinian", as assumed now.
Posted by: del at July 24, 2008 2:10 PM
Raymond,
While I agree with the logic of your argument, it is worth noting that the Jewish "conquest" of Palestine was one of the least bloody, least viscous and least exploitative of the local population.
Zionists, more so than probably any other people ruling today over conquered land, went to great length to legally purchase the land where they set up their farming communities and towns, trying their best not to dislocate the local Arab farmers. Most of the land was seen as of little value, yet the Jews purchased it from absentee landowners at exorbitant prices. Some of that land was state land of the former Ottoman Empire (promised to the Jews by the League of Nation mandate) that the British simply gave to Arabs who made their wealth by then selling it to Jews.
The Zionists tried again and again to reach a compromise with the Arabs and only gained territory in wars the Jews did not start. It is a rare, if unprecedented happening in human history, that the victorious party is both willing and pressure by others to make concessions to the losing side in order to lessen hostilities.
Furthermore, unlike campaigns of Arabization and Islamization throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the Jews didn't impose their religion or language on the Arabs within its territory. While an imperfect democracy, Israel has been more tolerant of a Muslim minority fifth column than Muslim countries have been with regard to their often defenseless subjects.
The invention of the "Palestinian people" was necessary. Without it the claim of the Arab need to control Palestine makes no sense other than as an act of hatred toward Jews. Arabs rule harshly and often unmercifully over so many other national, ethnic and racial groups in 22 countries, while finding it unacceptable that they live as a minority in one Jewish country on a tiny strip of land.
at July 24, 2008 2:12 PM
"And reality, in all its ugliness, has always shown that, in the end, utopian dreams dissipate, and only the strong survive. "
So many fail to grasp this, and they will continue to do so at their own peril.
Posted by: Bayoucoyote at July 24, 2008 2:34 PM
And reality, in all its ugliness, has always shown that, in the end, utopian dreams dissipate, and only the strong survive.
Well said.
Competition and struggle are the essence of life. Accept that life is hard and it seems easier, allowing one to savor the small victories and accomplishments. Deny it and you place yourself at the mercy of those who live in the real world. This is true on every level from the personal to the global. No amount of whining and wishful thinking will ever change that.
Posted by: RalphInfidel at July 24, 2008 2:39 PM
Errata Sheet:
For "The Palestinian-Israeli question has been a thorn in the world’s side for some time now."
Read "The Arab-Israeli question has been a thorn in the world's side for some time now"
Or, still better,
For "The Arab-Israeli question has been a thorn in the world's side for some time now"
Read "The Arab Muslim Jihad against Israel is a constant irritant, precisely because outsiders keep thinking they can somehow arrive at a 'solution' to what is not a 'problem' to be solved but a situation to be endured, and mitigated"
Or still better,
For "The Arab Muslim Jihad against Israel is a constant irritant, precisely because outsiders keep thinking they can somehow arrive at a 'solution' to what is not a 'problem' to be solved but a situation to be endured, and mitigated"
Read "The Lesser Jihad conducted by Arab Muslims (with some propagandistic aid from some "Palestinian" islamochristians) against Israel is not susceptible of "solution" but that does not mean that warfare need result, as long as Israel remains not only overwhelmingly stronger militarily, but that the government of Israel, and its outside wellwishers, understand clearly the nature of the hostility that is felt, permanently, by Arab Muslims, towards that tiny state, one which cannot be in the slightest assuaged by any further reductions in Israel's already preposterously tiny size, nor in any further yielding or failure even to state the legal, moral, and historic claims of the Jews -- who did not, pace the remarks above, "usurp" land but paid for it, with not a single dunam taken until after the 1948 war that the Arabs declared, and waged, on Israel."
There, now we're getting somewhere -- somewhere a lot closer to the truth.
Posted by: Hugh at July 24, 2008 2:41 PM
Realistically speaking, almost every major nation today—including the U.S.— is a product of one people’s conquest over another. Let us not forget that throughout world-history whole peoples have been either entirely wiped out or assimilated with their conquerors, their names, languages, cultures, and religions relegated to a historical footnote. Today’s countries are peopled by an amalgamation of the descendants of the conquerors and the conquered. So why should one group—Arabs—have a special, “legitimate” case against their conquerors?A mega Utopian reshuffling of world populations to some Megalithic times seems unreasonable, to say the least. There is an old Roman saying: “The law ends where war begins”. And they were not shy of war. For the “Palestinian” Arabs to re-conquer Canaan (they originally conquered it from the Christians and Jews living there) would do nothing to further world peace, since their supremacist ideology would only make it one more stepping stone for conquering the world for their war god Allah. Peace in the Middle East cannot become reality until they are soundly defeated and subdued to the rule of law, not their Sharia but the universal laws of modern civilization. Since they seem incapable of co-existing peacefully with their neighbors, not even amongst themselves, this illusive peace is a non-starter. Better to expect Haj Sophia restored to Christendom, or Solomon’s Temple rebuilt on the Mount, then chase after Utopian dreams of reshuffling all the wrongs of war done for the past ten thousand years. The rule of law ended when Arabs attacked Israel. There is no just “repatriation” on any books of law, nor is there any universal right to Islamic dominance in perpetuity over once conquered lands. They lost. Period.
The only rational solution to the “Palestinian” problem is to have the neighboring Arab states re-absorb their own. A state of war exists in perpetuity until they do so, and recognize Israel as a valid and independent state. In a “perfect world” this would usher in an era of peace in the Middle East, but we live in a rather un-Utopian imperfect world. The best we can hope for is some sort of lawful co-existence where the sword is beaten into plowshares. Islam will not allow it, as their ‘perfect man’ mandated its perpetual state of war with all mankind. And there the law's just cause ends.
at July 24, 2008 2:50 PM
Zuhair Mohsen in a March 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw:
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuheir_Mohsen
http://jihadwatch.org/archives/021103.php
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/008841.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_National_Fund
http://jihadwatch.org/archives/021213.php
http://jihadwatch.org/archives/008611.php
http://jihadwatch.org/archives/020536.php
British Mandate of Palestine, Wikipedia
The Palestine Mandate
The Balfour Declaration of 1917, Wikipedia
The Balfour Declaration of 1917
at July 24, 2008 3:48 PM
Nor does the passage of time justify ownership—and even if it did, still the Jews have a greater claim since Palestine was theirs centuries before the Muslim occupation (though the Canaanites might beg to differ).
And by our standards of justice, the passage of time never exonerates any crime: many aged men are arrested and brought to justice decades after their original transgression.
Interesting argument; by this logic we should return the US to their original occupants, but I don't see this happening anytime soon.
Posted by: witness at July 24, 2008 3:51 PM
The only rational solution to the “Palestinian” problem is to have the neighboring Arab states re-absorb their own.
On rare occasions, I encounter such a statement, which, on the face of it, I agree with. And following further contemplation, I agree with. But at all points in between, I can disagree with not only every word, but even the meaning or usage of every word. Several other "solutions" seemed "rational" in the interim, and could seem more so, if future circumstances dictate. This is check, not checkmate.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at July 24, 2008 4:20 PM
Excellent argumentation, Ibrahim!
There's one minor flaw in your logic: Franks, Canaanites, Romans, Byzantines ARE strapping on bombs, celebrating mass murder, flying planes filled with women and children into buildings, and such, often putatively on behalf of their "Palestinian" Muslim brethren, or somesuch. Those who converted to Islam, that is...
Posted by: jsla at July 24, 2008 4:39 PM
GIF image which could probably be made into a relaxing screen saver:
http://www.peacefestiowa.org/Map.gif
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at July 24, 2008 4:47 PM
Raymond, I appreciate the logic of your main argument. But I would say that the Arabs usurped the Land of Israel when the Jews were weak [subjugated to the Byzantine Empire]. In the course of their conquest, the Arabs performed ethnic cleansing [or mass deportations and mass transfers of population] in various places, especially along the Mediterranean coast [see al-Baladhdhuri's Futuh al-Buldan or Conquests of the Lands, available in English]. This is admitted by the early Arab historian al-Baladhdhuri [also spelled al-Baladhuri]. Jews and other non-Muslims were oppressed and subjugated in Israel and other countries conquered by Arabs/Muslims. Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims had the degraded, exploited and humiliated status of dhimmis.
But Jews never gave up their claim to and yearning for the Land of Israel, as attested by prayers, blessings, pilgrimage, monetary contributions, resettlement [reimmigration], etc. Jews always considered the Land of Israel their own, their homeland. When, if ever, does Raymond, or anyone else, believe that rightful Jewish ownership ceased and Arab ownership began, if ever??? On what date? If it took 100 years or 200 years for Arab ownership to begin, then Israel has to hold out that long.
Jews have always come back to resettle the Land of Israel, although conditions were often very difficult due to the Arab/Muslim oppression of non-Muslims. Ironically, although Arabs/Muslims had often made raids against Jews, persecuted them and exploited them economically, humiliated them over and over, it was European Crusaders who wiped out many or most of the Jews in the country in a short period [the first ten or 15 years of Crusader rule].
None of this history justifies Arab exclusion of Jews from the country, or the stopping of Jewish immigration. Yet, the Arabs did this during the Holocaust by obtaining from the British the so-called White Paper policy of 1939, which drastically minimized Jewish immigration during the Holocaust. I ask when and by what right did the Arabs exclude Jews from coming to the country?? By the way, Jews were coming back before the formal establishment of the Zionist organization, before Herzl was even born. Jews have been the majority of the population in Jerusalem since 1853. Herzl was born in 1860.
It seems to me that the Jews have more right to Israel than do the populations of many countries to the lands where they are now residing. How about New Zealand, taken from the Maoris?? On the other hand, Israel was Jewish-inhabited long before the Arab conquest, as Raymong recognizes.
Posted by: Eliyahu at July 24, 2008 4:49 PM
OT, but not much
Obama was babbling away in berlin, telling them we should welcome immigrants. What a scum. That means more Allahbots for Europe and more illegals in the US. Obviously, Obama is going to open the gates so the our cities will resemble Tijuana and Mexico City.
at July 24, 2008 5:15 PM
I am unsure of the correctness of the following, but I read it somewhere. Any comments would be welcome.
During the 19th c, as Christian regimes reconquered the Balkans from the Turks, many Moslems fled, not wanting to live in lands ruled by the "infidels". The Ottomans re-settled many of them on lands which were nearly vacant, in what is now Israel and "Palestine". Thus most "Palestinians" are the descendants of Serbs, Macedonians, and Bulgarians rather than Arabs.
Any truth to this?
at July 24, 2008 5:57 PM
As I understand it, the Arabs threw all the Jews out of Arabia back in the 7th century. It's only poetic justice that the Jews give them a dose of their own medicine.
Posted by: wallyUK at July 24, 2008 6:10 PM
Nor does the passage of time justify ownership
Three words: statute of limitations.
Posted by: Seamus at July 24, 2008 6:16 PM
I would argue that, from the point of view of theology and political philosophy, a good deal of the appalling scandal of the event of the survival of the Jews as a people within history, and the resurgence of the Jewish state of Israel (rising out of the abyss of the Shoah, and the abyss of 1300 years of dhimmitude under the scimitar of Islam) is analogous (for me, speaking as a Christian) to the appalling scandal of what Christians confess as the event of the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Read Psalm 82. Allow yourself to visualise YHWH as a Jewish rabbi storming into the complacent Council of the Gods of Power and Institutionalised Injustice, pronouncing sentence of death upon them (let us visualise those unnamed gods - how about seeing them as, for example, Odin Glutter of the Crows, or Moloch and Baal, or as Allah and the man-eating gods of the Aztecs, or as all the rationalisers and totalisers of amoral Power and Violence and The Weak Must Go To the Wall as the Way Things Are, from Mohammed to Hitler to Mao?) and then you will understand Psalm 83, the murderous intensity with which the nations rise up in rage, to erase the very name of Israel from the world, to silence that unendurable Word of defiance and judgement.
Israel - and, for Christians, the Resurrection - scandalise the Powers of this World; both events, national, personal, call into question the Way of the World. Because both, in fact, do call into question the doctrine that what is done can never be undone, that the dead stay dead, that death and conquest together form a permanent 'statute of limitations', that if I can steal it, and get away with it, or kill the man and hide the body, that's all there is about it.
Can we - Christians, and Jews, at least - dare to believe, in the light of Exodus and Return, and (for Christians) the light of the empty tomb and the broken seal of Rome, the words of Isaiah 49: 24-25, which I have written into the flyleaf of Bostom's 'Legacy of Jihad'? -
"Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captive delivered? But thus says the LORD [YHWH] , 'Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered, for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee: and I will save my children".
RalphInfidel, you declared, sweepingly::
"Competition and struggle are the essence of life."
In what way does that philosophy, as expressed, differ - at bottom - from that of the Nazis, or of Islam, or of any other system that exalts the Will to Power and names Violence as both end and origin?
In what way does that assertion differ from the views of Lord Voldemort, as Quirrell explains them in 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone"? :
"A foolish young man I was then, full of ridiculous ideas about good and evil. Lord Voldemort showed me how wrong I was. There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it..".
I commend to you, and to Mr Ibrahim also, David Bentley Hart's "The Beauty of the Infinite": in its first part, 'Dionysus Against the Crucified', consider particularly the chapter on Nietzsche, 'The Will to Power'; in its second part, "Salvation', consider particularly the section titled "The Consolations of Tragedy, the Terrors of Easter'.
From the latter, I offer here at length Hart's exposition of the tragic, as opposed to the Biblical, vision of what constitutes 'reality', 'how things are':
"Metaphysical solace is precisely what the tragic is. It turns attention not toward the one who suffers, but to the sublime backdrop against which the drama is played out; it assures the spectator that this is how things are, this is the constitution of the universe, AND THAT JUSTICE IS STRIFE [my emphasis added - dda];
'tragic wisdom is the wisdom of resignation and consent, a wisdom that is too prudent to rebel against what is fixed in the very fabric of being, and that refuses to suffer inordinately, enraged by death or resentful of civic order.
'Tragedy legitimates a particular regime of law, violence and war: it teaches that moira {fate} places and displaces us, and so leads us to a serene and chastened acceptance of where we are placed and how we are displaced: tragedy resists every motion outward beyond the sentineled frontier, and reinforces the stable foundation of the Totality.
"Christianity, however, feeds upon a different wisdom, a defiant, Jewish wisdom that insists upon an act of affirmation far removed from the resigned serenity of tragic consciousness:
'insanely, perhaps, it enjoins a love of creation that will not be reconciled to the loss of what is created, but enacts a double motion, an affirmation of the goodness of what is, and an expectation of action by God to rescue this wholly good creation from the violences that enslave it.
"A recognition of the true universality of suffering, of its endless particularity and the infinite gravity of its every instance, no matter how base the sufferer, is a Jewish, not an Attic, accomplishment, and it leads inevitably to a prophetic outcry, a call for a reconciliation that is also a redemption, a demand for divine justice.
'Israel is always - and always ever more - in rebellion against the wisdom of totality. The wisdom of Israel - expressed in the added ending to the book of Job, or in Ezekiel's vision in the valley of dry bones - lies in its growing awareness that God is the god of justice and election, and that his goodness, and the goodness of creation, can be affirmed only through faith in a future that overcomes all endings...
"It is from Israel that Christianity learns the grammar of charity, its passionate commitment to creation, and its revulsion before injustice. Christian love erupts from the empty tomb, and so must always be in rebellion against all tragic 'profundities'."
Jacques Ellul's "The Meaning of the City' and 'Contre les Violents' (English edition entitled: Violence - Reflections from a Christian Perspective' ) and the 'Spengler' article in 'First Things' October 2007, entitled : "Christian, Muslim, Jew - Franz Rosenzweig and the Abrahamic Religions" might be profitably read in conjunction with Hart.
Islam's worship of violence and its paralysing inshallah fatalism are two sides of the same coin. As a slave system of dominance-submission it reserves a peculiar ferocity of hatred for Israel, for the Jews, for it perceives at the core of Judaism everything that it itself denies and tries to erase.
Even though, in the extremities of our self-defence against Islam we - and the nation of Israel - are driven to employ "the arbitration of the sword' (as Churchill put it), it is as much as our souls are worth to refuse to worship the sword, and to refuse to surrender our conviction that peace, trust, oath-keeping, co-operation, are just as 'real' as violence and lies.
at July 24, 2008 9:49 PM
Let's just throw in the towel and hand over Israel already. The appeasers will get to finally shut up because the palestinian problem will at long last be solved and the only cause of Koranic terrorism will be gone. And then the palestinians can continue their wonderful nation building that's going so well in Gaza and spread it throughout what's now Israel.
No people in history have had so much said and written of them and given so much aid while deserving so little attention as the palestinians. And the sad part is that there is no end in sight for all this foolishness.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at July 24, 2008 10:04 PM
I hate to chuck in another wee querrie on an otherwise excellent article, but... "Besides Turkey, all of today’s Muslim countries were taken by force and bloody conquest..."
Malaysia and Indonesia? I'm light on their Islamisation and stand to be corrected.
Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Liam1304 at July 24, 2008 10:13 PM
This material is pretty good, great job Raymond Ibrahim.
However there are some elements that require attestation.
I had opportunities to participate in dialogues with muslim leaders in malaysia. It was quite clear that their facts were based on propaganda based techniques to win in a forum.
The facts are simple.
1. Israel (the larger part) is a waste land, the british sold it to some jewish locals via the arabs counterparts at very high prices. It was noted that many of the Arabs have not set foot in their own land.
2. There was a jewish quarters in Jerusalem, there were 3rd class citizens and don't practice Judaism in public.
3. Jewish owned land was around 19% of the 48 borders by the turn 1900s. But the rest was not owned by the arabs either. No one practically owned it.
4. Jerusalem was set to rott by the Ottoman rulers. Nothing happened there and they made it this way possibly to erase the jewish presence. There was very very little references of Jerusalem in books written at that period.
5. in the early 1900's arabs came to jerusalem and some parts of israel and systematically chased the jewish settlers away. some noticeable 'racial accidents' includes burning of jewish homes, whole streets at a time.
6. the earliest zionist group was formed (although jews in general disliked the group) to protect jewish settlers from harassment from arabs. (the group was disbanded after 1948)
1898 YA published the possibility of the creation of israel out of 3 areas. west jerusalem was chosen.
7. The palestine term was re-introduced to unify the jewish and arabs living in israel & jordan.
8. Jordan was given special rights and transfer of power was given to 1 tribe which was around 10% of the population. They tried to integrate other arabs but was forced to stop as they were loosing power to the other arab tribes.
9. Arabs Muslims left Israel voluntarily as the arab leaders promised to destroy israel if they declare independence.
10. Israel was attacked several times and took control of the non-mandated lands along with some parts of egypt & syria.
11. The now 'palestine' then tried to take control of Lebanon and Jordan etc. They were stopped and kicked out. They became political refugee as arab leaders were fearful to loose their powers.
12. Till date, over 90% of the killed palestine muslim population were from neighboring muslim countries. not Israel.
13. Before major wars involving Israel, the jewish leaders would normally sneak into the opposing muslim countries to reason with the arab leaders not to attack israel and had given in many times.
--
Any israeli would tell you the condition of Jerusalem today. Totally accessible by anyone, any religion, but they do restrict individuals that directly opposed the israeli state.
On Fridays, they mosques speakers would be blasting with prayers and the lectures upon lectures.
On saturdays, when the sabbath was observed, the muslims would also blast the speakers, always louder than the jewish or Christians prayers.
This about it, are non muslims allowed in mecca?
If the Muslims deeply care for their brothers in Palestine, make them accountable for the billions in aid given to them.
Also, why didnt all the 22 muslim countries decide to assimilate the refugees?
Somehow, the refugees that was claimed to be massacred by the IDF and lost around 60% of its population became over 3 million today, thats at least 5 times more than the recorded (highest estimated number) 50 years ago.
These refugees have basic needs, water, electricity and Internet!
Compare the real refugees in Rwanda and other countries in Africa.
The truth is was matters.
at July 25, 2008 4:35 AM
What saddens me most about the Arab-Israeli conflict is the marked difference between the reality of today's world and how things could (or should) have been. Were it not for the ongoing violence the entire Middle East region could have benefited hugely from Israel's presence there, in terms of trade and equality and justice.
The argument about who has the right to live there is futile. Opinions are so polarised even amongst non-Muslims and non-Jews that I, as an ardent supporter of Israel's right to exist in peace, would never be able to make someone of the opposing opinion see my point of view. We just have to accept the situation as it is and figure out how to make the best of it, or at least mitigate the worst of it.
What is needed is for the Arab leaderships to put the past behind them and move on, as the Israelis in general have always been demonstrably willing to do (having always been open to a two-state solution provided that it doesn't result in a steady stream of suicide bombers on childrens' school buses).
Sadly that will probably never happen.
Posted by: Matt Pryor at July 25, 2008 7:02 AM
The truth is that Palistine is today's Jordan.
Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at July 25, 2008 7:04 AM
I would not characterise it as the 'survival of the fittest' ( Though it undoubtedly was). The only peoples survival that were at risk was the Jews , the Arabs could retreat or flee...the Jews had no where to go ( with all the implications of what would happen if they lost) So I consider it a moral victory for humanity.
But 60 years later and Israel is changing.It is affluent and successful. It is less sure in doing what is necessary for its survival and this is reflected in its choice of leaders. Its enemies use its scruples against it all the while waging an unscruplous war . Then there is the "World" whose opinion is that the 'Palestinians' are on the side of justice and the downtrodden and Israel is the sole cause of their plight.Then there is Israel's partners ( like the USA) who hector and bully Israel's incompetant leaders into concessions without peace while terrorist armies are being built on its borders.
Meanwhile ,the Arab world remains -UNCHANGED and UNCHANGING. I get bombarded daily with the view that Israel is some sort of oppressive apartheid State and the Palestinians are the most aggrieved people in the world. And that all that is wrong in the world is due to the creation of the State of Israel. That Islamic terror is motivated by the root cause of injustice and poverty...and every response by Israel is evidence of Israeli injustice and intransigence. That Israel should seek a politcal solution without delay, a two state solution... as if those who strap bombs to children to blow up jewish children ever want a politcal solution.
But as someone? once said " The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane". To think that peace is ever possible while Israel exists is to join the ranks of the insane.
Posted by: David Xavier at July 25, 2008 8:31 AM
Genetic studies suggest that the Palestinians are actually descendants of ethnic Jews who stayed in Palestine after 70 AD. They adapted to a whole series of conquests - Christian, Muslim, Mameluke, Ottoman and British - by learning their new masters' languages, by religious conversion, intermarriage, and by just keeping their heads down. The only thing they couldn't adapt to was the determined return to Palestine of the descendants of their co-ethnics under the banner of Zionism.
What would your attitude be if some Roma (gypsies) of Europe were to develop their own version of Zionism, and demand the creation of a Roma nation state in Rajasthan?
Posted by: georgesdelatour at July 25, 2008 8:46 AM
Granted: the Jews too have through the force of arms taken Palestine.
Liar... the land was given to them by the King of England. The Ottoman Turks ceded it at the Treaty of Versailles. The Turks willingly allied themselves with the Kaiser and his Huns, and by extension declared war on France, England, and America. And lost the war.
Please keep your facts straight. The Jews did not, through force of arms, take "Palestine." They DEFENDED Israel. And are forced to continue to do so.
Posted by: kj at July 25, 2008 3:23 PM
There was no Israel to defend at the time of the Versailles conference, and no Israeli passport holders to do the defending. At the time of the Balfour Declaration the population of Palestine was approximately 670,000. Arabs constituted around 91% of the population, Jews 9%.
(ref: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%20Balfour%20Declaration%20and%20its%20consequences.html)
It's also wrong to use the phrase "The Jews" when what is meant is "Zionist Jews". Many Jews at the time, such as Lord Montagu, were not Zionists, as are a proportion of Jews today.
On a separate note, the world's most populous Muslim nation is Indonesia. There is no evidence that Islam arrived there through outside military conquest and subjugation.
Posted by: georgesdelatour at July 25, 2008 6:13 PM
For an accurate description of what happened to the land and the peoples of Byzantine 'Palestine' after it was invaded and occupied by Muslims, and many of its original indigenous inhabitants were either killed by Muslims, or driven out by Muslims, or converted to Islam, or ruthlessly subjugated and exploited as dhimmis by Muslims, new readers to this site are advised to ignore 'delatour' and read the following books:
Bat Yeor, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam (there are sections that describe the presence of dhimmi Christians and Jews in eretz Israel throughout the Islamic imperium, and how they were treated).
Andrew Bostom, Legacy of Jihad (use the Index, and look for 'Syria' and 'Palestine' and 'Jerusalem').
James Parkes, 'A History of Palestine'.
Moshe Gil, 'A History of Palestine: 634-1099'.
Jews - Jews who obstinately chose to maintain their language, history, memory and religion - continued to live in eretz Israel throughout the entire period of Muslim domination, as dhimmis, treated like s**t - hence the Muslim mob cry, 'The Jews are our dogs!'. A population of Christians (of Jewish, Greco-Roman, Greco-Syriac ethnicity) also hung on in the Land. Muslim rulers played the Jews off against the Christians; typical 'split the camp' tactics.
Meanwhile, those (of Jewish, or Christian, or Samaritan faith) who 'converted' to Islam, either at the edge of the scimitar, or giving way over time to the horrifying pressure of degradation, humiliation and physical insecurity that is dhimmitude, COMPLETELY forgot who they had been. They became Arab/ised Muslims, nothing else. Their dna may remember: but that is ALL.
They do not remember they were once Jews, or Christians of either Jewish or Greco-Roman or Greco-Syriac Byzantine or even Arabian/ Nabatean ancestry. Islam has annihilated their historic memory. Islam has turned them into *nothing but* Muslims.
They joined the Dominators. Islam has taught them, for centuries, to despise, to degrade, to kill, to rob, to stone and spit upon, to rape and murder, to treat with bone-chilling contempt their dhimmi neighbours in the Land, Jews, Christians, or Samaritans, their own erstwhile kin, who still refused to bow to ha-Meshugga and his Arab god of war and slavery.
By what right can the Islamised 'palestinians' claim sole and exclusive right of possession of the land, on the basis of a past identity that has manifestly meant nothing, and less than nothing, to them? Since Islam despises locality and patriotism, anyway, seeking to dissolve and erase all such local loyalties and absorb the world into the amorphous 'blob' that is the Ummah (well, actually, to erase all identities except the Arab, which is totalised and absolutised in the form of Quranic Islam?).
Nor could the descendants of indigenous Jewish or Christian 'converts' by any stretch of the imagination be described as comprising the vast majority of the present-day Arab/ Arabised population of Muslims who inhabit either Israel, (and whether they live in Israel proper, or in jihad fortress Gaza, or in Muslim-dominated Judea and Samaria, they receive far fairer treatment from the Jews, than their forebears *ever* gave to the dhimmis).
Most of the 'Palestinian' Arab/ised Muslims today, in and around Israel, descend from a flood of migrants, from all kinds of places -for example, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, North Africa, Bosnia and Bulgaria - that entered the region during the 19th and 20th centuries, right alongside the returning Jews.
The way *I* see it: the Ottoman Empire was smashed, and a good thing, too. Even before that final collapse, non-dhimmi Zionist Jews who had been emancipated by the European Enlightenment, had returned in numbers to the land of Israel and joined and REINFORCED their dhimmi brethren. Then they got their chance; they took it; they resurrected a free Jewish state, breaking the chains of dhimmitude, and rolling back the Empire of Islam.
That's decolonisation, folks. It's no less valid than the decolonisation of Greece or Spain, Sicily or Malta, Romania and Bulgaria, in past centuries, where the Empire of Islam was also driven back, forced to disgorge its ill-gotten and ill-kept gains.
I am sure that among the Muslim Moors who could not be allowed to remain in newly liberated Spain, or among the Romanian and Bosnian and Bulgarian Muslims who were driven out when the Balkans were freed from Islam, would have been people whose dna was the same as those who drove them out. But the thing inside their heads - Islam, Islam, Islam - was such as to render them a mortal danger to their kin; for it programmed them to count NO attachment, no bond to land or person, as outweighing the obligation to ensure that 'Islam shall dominate, and not be dominated'.
Tragically, anyone of long-ago Jewish ancestry who is now a 'palestinian' Muslim, is now only capable of seeing their own relatives (those who fled from Islam to other lands, or resisted Islam, enduring the seven hells of dhimmitude while preserving memory, religion and history) as mortal enemies and enemy aliens; as 'things', nonhuman or subhuman, to be hated, destroyed, or enslaved.
Maybe the guy who drove an earthmoving machine down a Jerusalem street, might carry a long-forgotten wisp of jewish dna. But if he did, it means nothing. He acted as an agent of the Army of Islam.
Unless 'palestinian' Arab/ised Muslims defect from Islam and become apostates - secular, or Christian, or Jewish - they will never stop hating the Jews and Christians who live in Israel, and trying to dominate them, or kill them.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 25, 2008 8:34 PM
In the real world we can only try and do our best for the living. We cannot do anything for the dead. Above all, we cannot give them the vote.
No Jews "returned" to Israel. Some went to settle in territory their distant ancestors had lived in almost 2,000 years previously. Taken to its absurd logical conclusion, Zionism would grant the whole of humanity - all six billion of us - the right to "return" to Kenya - and deny the present-day Kenyans any right to limit our settling there.
I read this blog because I am genuinely concerned by the revival of Islam, a religion which combines the worst of Judaism (the Moses of Numbers 31) with the worst of Christianity (the fires of Hell, plus the imperative of planet-wide conversion). Islam certainly makes the Israel-Palestine conflict a lot worse. But it is not its root cause. If the Palestinians had been Hindus, Animists, Shintos or Scientologists, they would still have resisted the Zionist takeover of their land. As Vladimir Jabotinsky wrote in "The Iron Wall" (1923):
"Every reader has some idea of the early history of other countries which have been settled. I suggest that he recall all known instances. If he should attempt to seek but one instance of a country settled with the consent of those born there he will not succeed. The inhabitants (no matter whether they are civilized or savages) have always put up a stubborn fight... Compromisers in our midst attempt to convince us that the Arabs are some kind of fools who can be tricked by a softened formulation of our goals, or a tribe of money grubbers who will abandon their birth right to Palestine for cultural and economic gains. I flatly reject this assessment of the Palestinian Arabs... They understand as well as we what is not good for them. They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie."
"Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population - an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy."
(ref: http://www.zfa.org.il/opinions/ironwall.html)
Posted by: georgesdelatour at July 26, 2008 12:54 AM
georgesdelatour,
"Islam certainly makes the Israel-Palestine conflict a lot worse. But it is not its root cause. If the Palestinians had been Hindus, Animists, Shintos or Scientologists, they would still have resisted the Zionist takeover of their land."
Well , George ..we are here and we are now..history has happened! What would you propose to remedy this "root" cause and bring about peace? But sure if Islam isnt the root cause that started the conflict , it is certainly the 'root' cause of why there will never be peace.
Posted by: David Xavier at July 26, 2008 2:24 AM
To understand what is happening in the Middle East, and why the Arab Muslims - and, indeed, the Persian and the Pakistani and the Bangladeshi and the Turkish and the Somali Muslims and every other kind of Muslim so far as I can discover - all hate Jews, whether inside Israel or out of it, with mind-bending ferocity, one must completely ignore delatour's specious arguments about 'nationalism' and the supposed ethnic identity of 'palestinians' (the local Arabs or Arabised/Islamised melange, many with Bosnian or Bulgar or Berber or Syrian or Circassian ancestry) and read the following:
Andrew Bostom - 'The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism' and 'The legacy of Jihad'.
Bat Yeor, 'The Dhimmi' and 'The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam'. Pay particular attention to the historical documents that describe the ethnicities of the various peoples who were moved into the region by the Ottomans during the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries - but mostly in the 19th.As has been said, at this site, before: "all the [Muslim] Algerians and Egyptians and even Muslims from Europe who were transferred by the Ottoman Porte to the Ottoman lands further south."
If you know French, Antoine Fattal, 'Le status legal des non-Musulmanes en pays d'Islam'; and Jacques Ellul, 'Un Chretien Pour Israel' (pay particular attention to the chapters entitled 'Propaganda' and 'The PLO', and the chapter entitled 'Antizionism and Antisemitism').
James Parkes, 'A History of Palestine' and 'The Story of Jerusalem'.
Moshe Gil, 'A History of Palestine: 634-1099'.
Norman Stillman, 'The Jews of Arab Lands'.
S Goitein, 'A Mediterranean Society', which analyses the contents of the Cairo Geniza.
Andrew Bostom, 'Under Turkish Rule Part 1'
http://www.andrewbostom.org/content/view/44/43/
which includes evidence as to the lot of the indigenous Jewish communities in what the west then called 'palestine', between the 15th and 19th centuries.
And Martha Gellhorn's highly un-PC and, in the light of what we here have all learned about Islam, and the atmospherics of Islam, ruthlessly accurate article 'The Arabs of Palestine', 1961.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/196110/gellhorn
Oh, and the 1968 PLO Charter, which Jacques Ellul analysed and which he concluded was "a perfect expression of the Jihad"; and the Hamas Charter, in which the Jihad ideology is expressed in all its traditional virulence, undisguised by the thin veneer of 'national' or 'socialist' jargon that one finds in the 1968 document, or by the equally superficial veneer of pan-arabist rhetoric that one finds in the 1964 document that preceded it.
Muslim hatred of Jews long precedes the foundation of the Jewish state of Israel. It goes all the way back to the foundation of Islam. It was expressed in persecution and pogroms, when Jews throughout the Islamosphere were a vulnerable minority without any recourse to justice, and with no right or capacity to defend themselves against the violence to which the Muslims perpetually subjected them.
Jabotinsky misread the Arab Muslim mind. It was not that Jews were taking Arab land; they were perceived as taking MUSLIM land, land Islamised by violent conquest. The rage of the Muslims over their loss of the minuscule patch of territory that is eretz Israel, and their failure to completely dominate the Jews there as they were once able to do, is no different from the rage they feel when they think about the loss of Spain, or of Greece, or about the unendurable fact that the Hindus, whom Muslims could in past centuries enslave and mass murder with impunity, are now insolently running their own affairs on a large area of Hindu-dominated territory; or when the Copts in Egypt dare evince even the tiniest desire for recognition of their basic human rights.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 27, 2008 9:08 AM
Liar... the land was given to them by the King of England.
Wrong (note that I'm not calling you "liar" but giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that your error was in good faith). The King of England (actually, the United Kingdom) simply abandoned the land in 1948. He didn't "give" it to anyone, but washed his hand of the whole matter, leaving the Arabs and Jews to fight it out themselves. This after three decades of trying unsuccessfully to reconcile the competing claims of Arab and Jewish inhabitants.
Posted by: Seamus at July 27, 2008 7:34 PM
Seamus,
the British were not trying to reconcile Jews and Arabs. Throughout the period of British rule, from 1917 to 1948, British officials actually encouraged Arabs to attack Jews in the country and kill them.
British policy was frankly pro-Arab after WW2. Indeed, British armed forces took part in Israel's War of Independence on the Arab side, as in Jerusalem neat the Shim`on haTsadiq quarter, in the battle for Jaffa [Yafo], and the Royal Air Force fought for the Arabs over the skies of Sinai -near Rafiah- in arely 1949.
I could go on with this subject at length but am too budy.
Posted by: Eliyahu at July 28, 2008 9:05 AM
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