More fake history for leftists to lap up. My latest in FrontPage:
Hussain Altamimi, according to Fox News, is a legislative assistant for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Hypocritical Florida Vacay). It is unclear whether one has to express hatred for Israel to get such a job, or if it is simply the case that only haters of Israel will apply, but in any case young Altamimi took to Instagram on Christmas Eve to rant that “Israel is a racist European ethnostate built on stolen land from its indigenous population!” That’s some strong red meat for the blue rubes, but not surprisingly, it isn’t remotely true.
Aside from ignoring the descendants of the 900,000 Jews who were expelled from Arab lands upon the creation of the State of Israel, and who aren’t remotely European, Altamimi was ignoring the unbroken connection of the land of Israel and the Jews. The land that is now the State of Israel corresponds roughly to the lands known in ancient times as Judea, Samaria, Idumea, and Galilee, and was inhabited by Jews from time immemorial. In A.D. 134, the Romans expelled the Jews from the area in retaliation for a revolt against their rule led by the self-appointed messiah Simon Bar Kokhba; as an insult to the Jews and to efface any traces of their connection to the land, they renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina and the region Palestine, a name they plucked from the Bible, as it was the name of the Israelites’ ancient enemies, the Philistines.
Subsequently, Palestine was the name of a region but never of a people or of a political entity. The area that was Palestine was part of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire until it was conquered by the Arabs. Later it came under the control of the Turks, who ruled it until the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of World War I.
As The Palestinian Delusion explains, throughout all this time, even as invaders overwhelmed the land, a Jewish presence remained, particularly in Galilee. In the year 438, the Byzantine Empress Eudocia removed the prohibition on Jews’ praying at the site of their ancient Temple in Jerusalem, a prohibition that had been in place for three hundred years. Jewish leaders in Galilee sent out a message to “the great and mighty people of the Jews” relaying the happy news and declaring: “Know then that the end of the exile of our people has come.”
It hadn’t, but some Jews still persevered and continued to live in the region. In the tenth century, Jewish leaders in Palestine issued another call to the Jews to return to their homeland. But the various invaders and occupiers of the land of Israel never made aliyah (“going up,” or returning to the land of Israel) an easy or attractive option. On July 15, 1099, after some of their number had terrorized and murdered Jews all across Europe as they made their way to the Holy Land, the Crusaders finally entered Jerusalem, after a five-week siege. Once inside the city, they encountered a significant number of Jews, and were no kinder to them than they had been to their brethren in Europe. According to the twelfth-century Syrian Muslim chronicler al-Azimi, “they burned the Church of the Jews.”
A contemporary of al-Azimi and a fellow chronicler, Ibn al-Qalanisi, added: “The Franks stormed the town and gained possession of it. A number of the townsfolk fled to the sanctuary and a great host were killed. The Jews assembled in the synagogue, and the Franks burned it over their heads. The sanctuary was surrendered to them on guarantee of safety on 22 Sha’ban [14 July] of this year, and they destroyed the shrines and the tomb of Abraham.”
The Jews in the Holy Land always faced hardship. At the end of the fifteenth century, the Czech traveler Martin Kabátnik encountered Jews during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and reported that they still thought of the area as their land: “The heathens [that is, the Muslim rulers] oppress them at their pleasure. They know that the Jews think and say that this is the Holy Land that was promised to them. Those of them who live here are regarded as holy by the other Jews, for in spite of all the tribulations and the agonies that they suffer at the hands of the heathen, they refuse to leave the place.” Shortly thereafter, nearly thirty Jewish communities were counted in Palestine.
These communities faced continual oppression. In 1576, the Ottoman Sultan Murad III ordered the deportation of one thousand Jews from the city of Safed to Cyprus, not as punishment for anything they had done but arbitrarily, because he wanted to bolster the Cypriot economy. It is not known whether the order was carried out, but the order once again indicates the unbroken Jewish presence in the land.
The Turks taxed the Jews on the basis of the Qur’anic command that the “People of the Book” (primarily Jews and Christians) must be made to “pay the jizya [tax] with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (9:29). In 1674, a Jesuit priest, Father Michael Naud, wrote that the Jews of Jerusalem were resigned to “paying heavily to the Turk for their right to stay here…. They prefer being prisoners in Jerusalem to enjoying the freedom they could acquire elsewhere…. The love of the Jews for the Holy Land, which they lost through their betrayal [of Christ], is unbelievable.” Jews were coming from elsewhere to live there: “Many of them come from Europe to find a little comfort, though the yoke is heavy.”
By the end of the eighteenth century, only two hundred fifty thousand to three hundred thousand people, including ten thousand to fifteen thousand Jews, lived in what had become a backwater with a harsh and forbidding terrain and climate. Yet still Jews came. In 1810, the disciples of the great Talmudic scholar known as the Vilna Gaon arrived in the land of Israel from the Russian Empire, and rejoiced even though they were well aware of the hardness of the land to which they had come.
In 1847, the U.S. Navy commander William F. Lynch made an expedition to the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the surrounding areas, and encountered Jews all over the region. In Tiberias, wrote Lynch, “we had letters to the chief rabbi of the Jews, who came to meet us, and escorted us through a labyrinth of streets to the house of Heim Weisman, a brother Israelite.” Lynch saw Ottoman oppression up close and held a dim view of the sultanate, of which he wrote presciently: “It needs but the destruction of that power which, for so many centuries, has rested like an incubus upon the eastern world, to ensure the restoration of the Jews to Palestine.”
That power was eventually destroyed. Yet still there are forces that are determined to drive the Jews once again from their homeland, as Hussain Altamimi demonstrates. The fact that such a mendacious and vindictive operative would find himself in the employ of a member of the House of Representatives is yet another example of the degeneration of the political sphere in our age.
somehistory says
This idiot appears to be watching a horror movie…perhaps one in which she is the “star” character, but not one who will do anything heroic.
Hiring one like she is….liar, sensationalist, creepy, self-absorbed, arrogant, stupid….how could she do any differently? And the tweet about “you can’t date me,”…the people who voted her into office where she is supposed to help craft laws that govern us all, should be hanging their heads in shame.
And hiring a mozlum….just one more error on her part. They have piled high, and we are likely to hear worse from his corner of the Government of The People.
gravenimage says
Yes–her claim that anyone who dares criticize her appalling politics is just frustrated because they want to sleep with her is grotesque. Isn’t this claim actually sexist? As though no one can consider her views independent of her looks. She also grossly overestimates her attractiveness, to put it mildly.
somehistory says
You know, there are women who date and marry men for their money. there are men who date and marry women for their money or their family money.
She should be asking herself if her boyfriend is dating her for a similar reason. But, she is too convinced…or wants to be…of her supposed good looks. to even consider that possibility.
I would venture to say she is more unattractive than what she believes about herself. Big mouth, opened wide often, and buggy eyes…not usually the way guys describe their dream girls.
Infidel says
Not just muslims, the people who support her are thugs. There’s a reason that mini-AOC was pulled from social media
WPM says
From the stock picture you posted in the article I think we have found Mr.Ed granddaughter
Kepha says
The typical product of American [mis-]education probably had never heard of Mizrahi Jews, that Christians in the Middle East stem from 19th century missionary efforts, and that Islam has been around since the days of Abraham. I even once met a supposedly well-educated Jewish gentleman who believed the main language of ‘Eretz Yisroel in the days of Jesus was Arabic, and who hadn’t even heard of the Aramaic language (never heard the Kol Nidre? Prayed the Kaddish at a relative’s funeral? Unaware of the language of portions of Ezra and Daniel?)! It is a given among my colleagues in the ejjimakashin racket that Islam is a “tolrant” and “peaceful” religion that reveres the Old and New Testaments as they are known to Christians! Is it any wonder that Hamas and other Islamicist propaganda finds so ready a hearing among people?
gravenimage says
Could be, Kepha–certainly, many Americans are sadly woefully ignorant. However, I think this from Hussain Altamimi has more to do with Islam than with honest ignorance.
Wellington says
I wish AOC were merely dumb and pathetic. Unfortunately, she is dumb, pathetic and a rock star with millions of other dumb and pathetic people.
Herein lies the real problem. It’s a “volume matter.”
We have only, like, you know, twelve years before America ends as long as the AOC idiots have any true say. Make that more like eight years.
gravenimage says
Sadly true, Wellington.
gravenimage says
Muslim Staffer for AOC Refers to Israel as ‘Racist European Ethnostate’
……………….
Hussain Altamimi is either woefully ignorant, or else just hopes that we are.
Kenneth J Johnson says
Another Congresswoman who does NOT represent her district, only the Muslem portion of it. KEN
Istvan Vogel says
Israel enters the Eurovision song contest every year. That’s why it’s a European country! Don’t know what an “Ethnostate” is though. Could she be referring to somewhere like Saudi Arabia?
Infidel says
Geographically, Israel is in Asia, and Hebrew is an Asian language. The lines dividing continents used to be pretty clear, and the Soviet Union and Turkey were the only Eurasian countries when I was young. Now you have parts of Kazakhstan claiming to be in Europe, and countries like Azerbaijan also pretending to be in Europe
gravenimage says
This is true–Israel is an Asian nation. They often ally with Europe because of cultural similarities with Western nations–not because of ethnicity. That, and because all of their neighbors are Islamic crap holes.
Chrissie01 says
well, it’s a fact: Ignorance is NOT bliss. It is not a virtue, particularly not in a democracy. Everybody has the duty of informing themselves to base their voting on an informed decition.
Remaining uninformed and rejecting reality by plugging violently holding one’s ears shut, yet still absolutely demanding to participate in all and any decision-making is a dangerous idiocy, and not democracy.
The Istanbulian says
How does altamimi go to sleep every night knowingly working for a ‘cortes’
gravenimage says
Just because it is politically expedient at this point. In an Islamic society an opinionated Infidel women like AOC would be shut up–probably violently.
The Istanbulian says
Cortez is the name of european settler colonialism….guess that doesn’t bother non European settler colonists
gravenimage says
I get that–just saying that this is expedient for Muslims right now. If–god forbid!–they ever gain full power here that will be the end of Infidels of any kind in any positions of power.
OLD GUY says
AOC, will say whatever her financier handler tells her too. Can we get a medical report on whether she has a brain and if so what her IQ is, not that IQ matters if you have no common sense. Common sense seems to be something vary short in Washington and the political world.
Kepha says
Most of the Arab world seems made up of racist ethnostates, even is they aren’t European! Turkey might also be called a racist European ethnostate (given that Anatolia was long the heartland of the East Roman Empire, and the role the Turks long played in EUropean international politics). Look at Malaysia’s Islamic and Malay Apartheid system!
gravenimage says
Kepha, this is just the idea that only white people of European descent can be racist.