Hello,

This is that new thread I mentioned that I would start. There has been some discussion on Israel and her past as it relates to the Palistinians. Someone said the situation is complicated. It is. In fact, it's the most complicated situation in modern history. Why? Because it has been going on longer than any other conflict in history. In fact, the conflict pre-dates Arabs and the Islamic/Muslim religion... by thousands of years.

Oiy, y'all will kill me... but here's a little story. In 5 parts.

One problem with the discussion on Israel is that everyone goes back in time to a point that they see as beneficial to their argument and then says, "see, so and so has the right to be there." There Arabs/Palestinians say they have been in the region for 2000 years. The Jews say their country was there for thousands of years before that. I will play historian for a few minutes to show the background.

The land of Israel has a long history. About 2800 BC was the first kingdoms in the region. From that time, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians traded dominance over the region.

Initially, the Canaanites and then the Philistines held the Coastal region. The Semites, of whom Abraham was one (the Semites extended to Mesopotamia, as well), inhabited the region from the coastal area to the Jordan River, from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, called the Central Hill Country. Abraham moved because his one-god, unknown to most in the day, told him that his family would be chosen among all and would be protected by God.

Already, the seeds of conflict start - Abraham's family, and his family alone, is chosen under God. And God wants them to move West, to where Modern Israel now exists. At any rate, the region that they wandered in includes the region in which Jerusalem was established. East of this land, the Edom, Moab, and Ammon kingdoms existed. The details are gone from History, though, since the History was only finally written down in what became the Bible a thousand years later.

This is the way things were from 1900 BC to about 1500 BC. The one-god religion was informal - it had been just a voice in Abraham's head, and the people only knew that there was one god - they did not have a name for this god. Over the time, there were several tribes of the descendants of Abraham that formed and settled throughout the region, though at least some moved to Egypt (probably the origin of the name "Hebrew" - "apiru" meaning "foreigner,” and then "habiru" meaning landless foreigner).

From 1500-1250 BC, there is again almost no record of what happened. The Semite tribes grew powerful in Egypt and it is thought these Semites were at least in part the followers of Abraham. For a while, even, the Semites ruled Egypt - in Egyptian history, the "Third Intermediate Period" around 1800 B.C. The Egyptian king Seti I (1305-1290) is thought to have moved the Egyptian capital north and to have built garrisoned cities using the foreigners as laborers. These building projects are probably the oppressive projects described in the book of Exodus.

The word "Jew" comes from the Hebrew "Yehudi" which means "inhabitant of Judah," speaking of members of the tribe of Judah or the kingdom of Judah. The tribe consists of the descendants of Judah, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah. Around 1200 BC, the sons of Judah were expelled from Egypt. According to the Bible, they followed Moses to the Holy Land, where they formed the first Judean state in the region of modern Israel and are the ancestors of modern Jews. The people who followed Moses were "Hebrews,” but until then, did not worship the Jewish God - they learned their religion from Moses during the Migration, and he possibly picked up the religion from the Midianites, who worshipped a nature god who lived on Mount Sinai - where Moses is said to have first spoken with God. (Incidentally, when they passed through the Red Sea (Sea of Reeds), one version of the story, though less spectacular than the parting of the sea, is that the Egyptian Solders, on horses and Chariots, became stuck in the mud, which the Hebrews, on foot, could pass over. The Egyptians gave up the chase when they realized they would not be able to follow by horse and carriage, and especially not while carrying supplies and armor, all much heavier and less mud-worthy than people on foot carrying only a few meager belongings.).

END PART 1

 

PART 2

According to Genesis, their eventual kingdom was bounded on the east by the river Euphrates, on the west by the Mediterranean, on the north by the "entrance of Hamath," and on the south by the "river of Egypt.” In total, about 60,000 square miles, conquered by David, and ruled over by his son Solomon - from Jerusalem, his capitol. "Palestine," a name created by the Romans in an attempt to erase the Jewish history (note, the word "Palestine" does not occur in the new or old testaments), described only the western edge of the kingdom. Solomon's son was a terrible leader and ten of the tribes revolted and formed the Kingdom of Israel, with the capital of Samaria. The Judah kingdom - between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea - existed from the division of Palestine in 931 B.C. until the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C by the Babylonians, which was 140 years after the Israelite tribes were destroyed by the Assyrians.

In those days, conquerors still feared the local Gods. The Hebrews still believed the pagan gods had some power (sort of, 'just in case'). This can be seen from the first of the 10 commandments, that no gods be put before Yahweh (the Jewish God), not that no other gods exist. The Assyrians picked up the Jewish God and integrated God into their religion. Over the next few hundred years, they slowly switched to completely following the same religion, though Abraham's people did not accept non-Hebrews. The Samaritan "schism" played a large role in the story of Jesus of Nazareth... and even recently, there were (are?) Samaritans who believe in the Old Testament (people living in the West Bank).

The exiled Jews and Israelites spread throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Although the Judean Jews were settled in small areas, near Jerusalem and in Arabia, the Israelites were dispersed throughout the region and were homologated with the indigenous peoples of the lands (though some people say there are references to these people for hundreds of years further in time). The ten lost tribes never again show up in history. Meanwhile, some 10,000 Jews were exiled to Babylon, comprising scholars, teachers, merchants, etc. This marks the Exile in Jewish history. Very little is known of the rest of the Jews, who remained in the lands of Judah. Lamentations was probably written in Jerusalem during the exile, while Job and many of the Psalms were written soon after the exile. These indicate that life was probably full of hopelessness.

Meanwhile, the Babylonian Jews renewed their faith and felt they had been exiled because they had not held pure. See Ezekiel and Isaiah, both written by these exiled Jews.

Cyrus the Persian then conquered the whole Middle East. His goal in life was to conquer the entire world. This was the first time someone had that goal - previous conflicts had strategic drives. Cyrus had a religious goal in mind. The Persians were Indo-European - they spoke Greek, German, and English, and they practiced a new religion, Zoroastrianism. The primary tenant of this religion was dualism. The world is made up of a Good and Light side and an Evil and Dark side. There were thus two primary gods. All the struggles of humankind and of the religions of men were all small parts of this epic, eternal battle. The gods of the various people were on one team or the other, and the Jewish God, Cyrus said, was a good god who had come to him and told him to re-establish the Jewish religion and rebuild Jerusalem. Cyrus ordered Jews and people of all other religions to return home to worship their gods to make way for Good.

Cyrus' empire was the largest empire to date. Moreover, Judah was now a theological state... and the Jews persecuted non-Jews and expelled all practice of foreign religions. The Persians and Greeks would later respect this exclusivity, but the Romans would not. Some of the Persian ideas, however, remained with the common folks. These became part of Christianity. The Dualistic universe, including the concept of the devil and the afterlife, grew into Christianity.

After the Persians, the Greeks took over (333-63 BC) with the conquering of Alexander the Great. Ptolemy ruled from 320 to 168 BC. Around 250 BC, the Greeks translated the Torah to Greek. The Judah’s ruled the region for about 100 of those years, until Rome (Pompey) annexed Palestine in 64 BC. Here marks the important footnote that leads to today's Israeli conflicts. A large number of the Judah/Judean Jews fled the area and settled in what was then Arabia. Remember that from the exile in 586, there were also Jews in Babylon and there were Jews in Egypt.

END PART 2

 

PART 3

The Romans would rule until 400 AD. The Romans made Judea a part of their empire and two years later, Joshua (later to become Jesus) was born in about 4 BC. He lived to 30 AD. It was during these times that the region gained the name "Palestine" and the displaced Jews were called the "Palestinians."

The Christian bible was then written from about 50 to 125 AD. At the same time, the Judeans revolted several times against Rome and were successful to only a minor extent. Around 150 AD, the last (third) division of the Jewish Scriptures were written and accepted as sacred... and Jews were banned from Jerusalem. Note, the Romans continued to persecute Christians until about 311.

By 380, Christianity became the sole religion of the Roman Empire. Slightly before that, Jerusalem was rebuilt under the Christians (Constantine, Helena). Around 570-632 AD, Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam lived.

Now comes the very important, most relevant part.

Muhammad helped unify the various Arab tribes. At the time, Mecca was the Holy Land of the Muslims. However, the Muslims were not a very organized or powerful people. In fact, many of their settlements were ruled by resettled Palestinian Jews. These Jewish Palestinians resettled to become prosperous, influential Arabian settlers.

This was particularly the case in the city of Yathrib, where the Jews (Jewish Palestinians) were wealthy and the Arabs were divided tribesmen. The Arabs united under Muhammad and expelled all the Jews, renaming the town Medina, and making it the second most holy town in the Muslim world.

The Islamic period marked a time that may have been the worst persecution of the Jews in History, unequalled by even Hitler's Germany. The Qu'ran spoke scornfully of the Jews, who owned all of the fertile lands of Arabia. The Muslims (practitioners of Islam) began systematic slaughter of Jews and expropriation of their lands. It is thought that this happened because the Jews refused to support Muhammad as a Prophet, so he started having them killed - see The Life of Muhammad, abridged English trans. by A. Guillaume (Karachi, 1955). The Prophet Muhammad pronounced that the "[t]wo religions may not dwell together on the Arabian Peninsula."

The turning point from the Jewish perspective actually came when the Muslims sent a peace envoy to the new Jewish refugees (fled from Madina) and when the leaders of the Jews returned to conference with the Muslims, the entire unarmed delegation was slaughtered. At this time, The Prophet Muhammad said, "War is deception" -al-Bukhari, al-Jami al Sahih.

The Muslims continued and successfully wiped out the Arabian Jews. The Koran states: "... some you slew and others you took captive. He (Allah) made you masters of their (the Jews') land, their houses and their goods, and of yet another land (Khaibar-the fort-city where most of the Palestinian refugees settled) on which you had never set foot before. Truly, Allah has power over all things."

It was during these times that Mohammad is said to have been brought to Jerusalem by Gabriel, the Angel. Islamic Prayer thus points in three directions - Jerusalem being the third. In 638, Syedina Omar went to Jerusalem to regain entrance to the city. He was allowed in and the Christians signed a treaty with the Muslims - the two religions would coexist in Jerusalem so long as Omar expelled all Jews from Jerusalem. When Omar prayed that night, he prayed on the Porch to the church, fearing that his fundamentalist followers would take over the church to pray there, if he did. The Porch became the site of the third holiest Mosque in Islam, Al Aqsa Mosque, built in 715 A.D.

This is a first inclination as to why there is almost no hope for peace among Muslims and Jews, btw. The Muslim bible cheers the destruction of the Jewish people. The Muslim Prophet made his claim to leadership (fame through his religious connection, leadership through his crushing of the Muslim enemies) by the genocide of the Jewish tribes living in Arabia.

At any rate, the Muslims ruled the land until about 1099, when the European crusaders waged war against Islam in Palestine and recaptured Jerusalem. 70,000 Muslims were killed by the Crusaders. The Christians held Jerusalem for 90 years, after which the Muslims retook the city and held it until the British gave the lands of Palestine to the Jews in 1948.

END PART 3

 

PART 4

Continuing the history, basically, "Palestine" fell off the map in World History for the entire period from 1187 A.D. to 1948 A.D. In the intervening time:

1290, the Jews were expelled from England
1306-1394, the Jews were expelled from France
1492 the Jews were expelled from Spain (though given a chance to convert)
1496 the Jewish converts were expelled from Spain
1542-6 Luther preached against commingling with the Jews.
1516 & 1555, Jews forced to move to ghettos in Venice & Rome.
1655 Oliver Cromwell readmits Jews to England
1670 Jews expelled from Vienna.
1790 French Jews given citizenship
1909 Founding of Tel Aviv as Hebrew-speaking Jewish City in "Palestine"
1917 Balfour Declaration in favor of Jewish Palestinian State
1935 Jewish rights in Germany rescinded by Nuremberg laws
1938 Jewish synagogues in Germany all burned down
1939-45 **** German Holocaust
1948 Declaration of the State of Israel
1967 Six Days War reunited Jerusalem under Israeli control
1973 Yom Kippur War


What happened in "Israel" during that intervening time? There was no spectacular he-took-over-then-he-took-over history as there had been in the previous millennia. After the Crusades, Jews returned to Israel and Jerusalem, where they remained. In 1260, the Egyptians conquered Palestine. The Mameluke soldiers who came were Muslim, so while Palestine had no political significance, it had some religious importance in the region. The Ottoman Empire came next, and cultural and economic stagnation set in. By this time, most authors agree that the people in Palestine were a mix of Egyptians, Turks, Kurds, Berbers, Slavs, Greeks, Dailamites, Tartars, and Negroes (dark skinned peoples from Africa). Philip Graves said in the end of the 13th Century, "In the Palestinian towns, Greek was the common tongue."

It was not until the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain and the following expulsions from other parts of Europe that Israel revived a little. The influx of Jews helped revive Jerusalem to some extent. However, although there were these periods of some minor flourishing, as Mark Twain said, "Stirring scenes ... occur in the valley [Jezreel - the most fertile lands in Israel] no more. There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent-not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings"

By the end of the 18th century, most of the land was owned by absentee landlords. The great forests of Galilee and Carmel were without trees. Deserts and swamps encroached previously fertile lands.

In "The Rediscovery of the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century,” Yehoshua ben-Arieh writes "At the beginning of the 19th century Palestine was but a derelict province of the decaying Ottoman Empire. ... The country was badly governed, having no political importance of its own; its economy was primitive; the sparse, ethnically mixed population subsided on a dismally low standard; the few towns were small and miserable; the roads few and neglected."

As the Jewish and Muslim populations around Jerusalem started to grow under the British Mandate, conflicts arose between Jews and Muslims. In 1929, the Jews of Hebron were massacred by Arabs. In 1948, Jordan conquered Samaria and Judea, renaming the area the "West Bank." In their expansion, they killed or expelled all the Jews.

During the 19 years from 1948 to 1967, Jordan held the West Bank and Egypt held Gaza. The modern Palestinian Arabs did not ask for an independent state. They were content or afraid to speak up.

Note also, from this story, that the word "Palestinian" refers to Jews displaced in one of the many exiles from the Roman-named Palestine - i.e., Jews displaced from what is now modern Israel. The Arabic-like people living in Palestine had never referred to themselves as Palestinians until 1948, when they suddenly became Palestinians because, like the Jews before them, they had been displaced from Palestine. That was the first time they adopted that name. Meanwhile, as recently as 1916, when the British took over Palestine, the Jews there were called the Palestinians. Their primary newspaper was the Palestinian Post (now the Jerusalem Post). They had a Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra, made up of Jews. The Palestine Brigade, part of the British Army in WWII, was entirely Jewish.

END PART 4

 

PART 5

The modern Palestinians have several claims to the land. The first is that they are descendants of the Philistines. These are the people that settled these lands before the Judeans did, but after the Canaanites. However, the Philistines (which is not a word of Arabic origin, so is already questionable as to having a non-foreign origin) were Aegean people, from the North, who came in the Bronze Age from the region around Crete. They were not at all related to modern Arabic people and are thus not related to the people now calling themselves Palestinians.

The modern Palestinians also claim that they are descendants of the Canaanites, who also pre-dated the Judeans. However, Arabs did not come into the region until Mohammad's time, several thousand years after the Canaanites. The Arab world no longer espouses such a connection with the Canaanites. The word "Arab" refers to the Bedouin people specifically, and to the Urban and Effendi classes. It does not refer to the Fellaheen masses, who were hired farmers, not landowners. It was only the Bedouin who thought of themselves as Arabs. According to the initial British reports from the 1920s, the people West of Jordan were not Arabic, but only Arabic speaking, primarily being Fellaheen. In the southwest portion of Palestine (Gaza), the people were almost entirely Egyptian in origin. The rest were a mixed people. The people of the region in fact spoke approximately 50 different languages, and so were not classifiable as one people.

Finally, the modern Palestinians claim that the Jewish population increased mostly by immigration, while the Arab population increased because of a high birth rate. Note mentioned is the high death rate of the Palestinians from unsanitary conditions, fighting between the many tribes, etc. A few thousand non-Jews 150 years ago could not have become six million Palestinians! It is estimated that 90% of the Arabs came into the area in the 20th century. In 1939, Winston Churchill said, "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied." British estimates put the Arab population west of Jordan as tripling between 1900 and 1947.


So what should be done? What has been done for the 100 million refugees throughout the world? They have been settled with like-minded people. In the 1950s, 8.5 million Sikhs and Hindus fled from Pakistan to India, while 6.5 million Muslims moved from India to Pakistan. Until the exchange, Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs had been mass murdering each other. Each side blamed the other and refused to accept any fault. The Pakistani President said, in 1960, that his people dealt with their own refugees without support from their Muslim brethren, and he suggested that the Pakistani settlement of almost seven million people serve as an example for the three-quarters of a million Palestinian refugees in the nearby Arab countries.

The Arab countries, however, unlike all other countries, be it in Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, or anywhere else, have refused to allow refugees to settle. In fact, Southeast Asians have been resettled in Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Nordic countries, New Zealand, Australia, etc. Out of Europe, Ethiopians, Kurds, Iraqis, and ex Soviet refugees have been settled worldwide.

Already, tens of thousands of Jews have settled in Israel from each of the neighboring Arab countries. Yemen, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, and Egypt have all had huge numbers of Jews move to Israel - in the hundreds of thousands in total. Those countries have all refused to accept the modern Palestinians, even though they played a role in the creation of Israel, uprooting and deporting their Jews immediately upon the formation of the State of Israel (and some starting with the British Mandate). The Palestinians would have been able to fit in where the Jews left, had the Arab nations decided to accept them... It would have been the most seamless integration.

The Palestinians have been pawns of the Arab nations. Now, a generation later, the Palestinians have grown to learn a deep resentment to the Israeli / Jewish people. I do not know what the answer is. They will never be happy living with the people they resent. They are unwanted by the people who share their language and culture. And they have turned ever bloodier in their terrorism of the Jewish people.

Joel

END END

 

thanks !

 

I spent 7 hours on a college campus today, and learned less than I did in 10 minutes of reading this post. Thank you i-Club!!! Thank you! lol. Good job Joel. You are obviously a dork only by choice to avoid making the rest of us look bad.

 

Awesome write up Joe

are you jewish?

I'm Sikh, we've met only a few times. You may remember me. I'd have to say that from what i know, when the sikh religion came about, or it's ideas began to spread in the early 1500s by Guru Nanak, that Muslims and Hindus did not like the new ideals. Sikhs have been persecuted since the religions beginning by muslims and Hindus. Then again, this all that i know off the top of my head. Do you know anything more about these times? I'd be interested in knowing what you've read.

If i'm to follow your write up correctly, you're saying that the Koran truly states such things against Jews, and that Muhammed also said such things... And that the Arabs invaded the area, and west bank, coming from Arabia?

Also, how do you feel about how Isreal is currently pressing slowly against the palestine area, increasing the borders of it's country?

thanx Joe,

-Gagan

 

Very nice Joel! I couldn't have stated it better. The colleges need to teach this too!

I was trying to hint at it in another post...but the details had slipped my mind.

I am very pro Isreal Christian. I become so irritated when I hear, "They (Palastinians) want their land back." I know that it is BS, but I can't argue the fact on the keyboard.

You should publish your 5 chapter thesus!

Very informative!

Andy

 

Hello,

Thanks for the good words.

That's actually a tough question. I am not religious and do not feel that I have any connection to the religion. I am of the Jewish people... specifically, I have strong Ashkenazi roots. Israel is officially a secular country, though it is widening that concept rapidly... to include the Sephardic Jews and other Jews. They are still appearing to imply that Jewish is a religion, though.

I guess the simple answer is yes, I'm Jewish.

Perhaps that's another thread, another day, eh?

The Koran is in searchable form on the internet at http://www.hti.umich.edu/k/koran/

They have simple, proximity, and boolean searching available, as well as a simple chapter-by-chapter browser. You can look up anything I've claimed.

Some exaples, though. Type the word "Jew" in the Simple search. You will find 23 references come up. Examples:

If you continue searching for the "Children of Israel" and other such things, you will find over 100 mentions of the Jews, from benine to benal.

I don't know what to think. Israel is between a rock and a hard place. Now two generations of Palistinians have been born as refugees. They have been bred with a hatred of the Jews. They have continued an onslaught of terrorism that has killed hundreds of Jewish children. What can Israel do? The Palistinians have been manipulated and played by the Arab nations...

Joel

 

So far, makes sense.

But i still feel that Isreal/US is backing them into a corner, and when in corners, beings become desperate.

We'll see how things turn out.

Thanks again for the information Joe.

-Gagan

 

Hello,

Gagan, what I'm looking for is what are the alternatives? I have no solution to the problem. You say the US and Israel are backing the Palistinians into a corner. What can the US and/or Israel do differently?

Joel

 

Nice post, Joel. I rate it a '5-star' thread.

Found the subject of Israel and the Palestinians to be as interesting as your more technically-related posts.

--
^ww^
"...axles of evil..." - George W. Bush

 

I don't think there really is one either. Seems to me that too many generations of children have been taught hate, and i really don't see any change coming unless the leaders of the nations of countries that are atwar like this stop, and truly try peace.

Problem with a war where religion is the main factor is that how can anyone think they are at fault? they are simply fighting for their religious beliefs. I don't think either side will back down now. I'm just not sure where all this is going to lead.

-Gagan