Living Under Israeli Occupation: The Christian Palestian Exp

P F Tinmore

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2009
76,877
4,125
1,815
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjkgfJfWPpk]Living Under Israeli Occupation: The Christian Palestian Exp - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVoQRnG9lWs]Living Under Israeli Occupation: The Christian Palestian P.2 - YouTube[/ame]
 
Tashbih Sayyed, Muslim Pakistani scholar, journalist, author and former Editor in Chief of Our Times, Pakistan Today, and The Muslim World TodayGlobal Politician - Israel’s Arab Citizens And The Jewish State

Blinded by their anti-Semitism, Arabs ignore the fact that neither are they an indigenous group nor is the Jewish nationhood a new phenomenon in Palestine; the Jewish nation was born during 40 years of wandering in the Sinai more than five thousand years ago and has remained connected with Palestine ever since. “Even after the destruction of the last Jewish commonwealth in the first century, the Jewish people maintained their own autonomous political and legal institutions: the Davidic dynasty was preserved in Baghdad until the thirteenth century through the rule of the Exilarch (Resh Galuta), while the return to Zion was incorporated into the most widely practiced Jewish traditions, including the end of the Yom Kippur service and the Passover Seder, as well as in everyday prayers. Thus, Jewish historic rights were kept alive in Jewish historical consciousness.

Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, never had a separate identity. They always thought of themselves as Arabs rather than as Palestinians. It is a matter of record that the Arabs owe their presence in Palestine to the Ottomans who settled Muslim populations as a buffer against Bedouin attacks and Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian ruler who brought Egyptian colonists with his army in the 1830s. And during all those times when Arabs lived under the Ottoman rule, they never showed any desire for national independence. According to Bernard Lewis, “From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries; it was a group of provincial subdivisions, by no means always the same, within a larger entity.” Lewis notes, "There had been a steady movement of Jews to the Holy Land throughout the centuries." In 135 CE Jews took part in the Bar Kochba revolt against imperial Rome and even re-established their capital in Jerusalem. Defeated by the most brutal of the Roman legions under the command of the emperor Hadrian, Jews were forbidden to reside in Jerusalem for nearly five hundred years. Once a year on the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, they were allowed to weep at the remains of their destroyed Temple at a spot that came to be called "the Wailing Wall." In the meantime, the Roman authorities renamed Judea as Palestina in order to obliterate the memory of Jewish nationhood.

A resolution adopted by the first Congress of the Muslim Christian Association which met in Jerusalem in February 1919 underlines the Arab understanding of the situation conclusively. It said, "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."

Jerusalem has always remained a Jewish majority – a symbol of Jewish yearning to be an independent nation as they thrived in communities in many of Palestine’s towns. “By 1864, a clear-cut Jewish majority emerged in Jerusalem - more than half a century before the arrival of the British Empire and the League of Nations Mandate. During the years that the Jewish presence in Eretz Israel was restored, a huge Arab population influx transpired as Arab immigrants sought to take advantage of higher wages and economic opportunities that resulted from Jewish settlement in the land. President Roosevelt concluded in 1939 that "Arab immigration into Palestine since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during the whole period."

The present Arab declaration challenging the Jewish character of Israel cannot be ignored because it is not just an expression of dissatisfaction by a minority about their socio-economic situation but a reminder that Islamist radicalism and fundamentalism has now decided to challenge openly the legitimacy of the Jewish state using Arab citizens of Israel as its proxy in Israel. It must not be forgotten that the Israeli Arabs are part and parcel of the same Global Jihad that has been murdering our gallant soldiers on the war fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
Tashbih Sayyed, Muslim Pakistani scholar, journalist, and author and former Editor in Chief of Our Times, Pakistan Today, and The Muslim World Today http://www.muslimworldtoday.com/land30.htm

A Muslim In Israel...
Aware of the constraints that a non-Wahhabi is faced with while performing religious rituals in Saudi Arabia, Kiran (my wife) could not hide her surprise at the freedoms and ease with which peoples of all religions and faiths were carrying out their religious obligations at the Church of the holy Sepulcher, Garden Tomb, Sea of Galilee, newly discovered Western Wall Tunnels, Western Wall, tomb of King David and all the other holy places we visited.

All religious communities in Israel enjoy the full protection of the State. Israeli Arabs—Muslims, as well as many Christian denominations—are free to exercise their faiths, to observe their own weekly day of rest and holidays and to administer their own internal affairs. Some 80,000 Druze live in 22 villages in northern Israel. Their religion is not accessible to outsiders and Druze constitute a separate cultural, social and religious Arabic-speaking community. The Druze concept of taqiyya calls for complete loyalty by its adherents to the government of the country in which they reside. As such, among other things, the Druze serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Each religious community in Israel has its own religious councils and courts, and has full jurisdiction over religious affairs, including matters of personal status, such as marriage and divorce. The holy sites of all religions are administered by their own authorities and protected by the government.
 
Last edited:
At the time of the creation of the Israeli state in 1948, it is estimated that the Christians of Palestine numbered some 350,000. Almost 20 percent of the total population at the time, they constituted a vibrant and ancient community; their forbears had listened to St. Peter in Jerusalem as he preached at the first Pentecost. Yet Zionist doctrine held that Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land.” Of the 750,000 Palestinians that were forced from their homes in 1948, some 50,000 were Christians—7 percent of the total number of refugees and 35 percent of the total number of Christians living in Palestine at the time.

In the process of “Judaizing” Palestine, numerous convents, hospices, seminaries, and churches were either destroyed or cleared of their Christian owners and custodians. In one of the most spectacular attacks on a Christian target, on May 17, 1948, the Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate was shelled with about 100 mortar rounds—launched by Zionist forces from the already occupied monastery of the Benedictine Fathers on Mount Zion. The bombardment also damaged St. Jacob’s Convent, the Archangel’s Convent, and their appended churches, their two elementary and seminary schools, as well as their libraries, killing eight people and wounding 120.

The American Conservative -- Forgotten Christians
 
Tashbih Sayyed, Muslim Pakistani scholar, journalist, author and former Editor in Chief of Our Times, Pakistan Today, and The Muslim World Today Global Politician - Israel’s Arab Citizens And The Jewish State

Blinded by their anti-Semitism, Arabs ignore the fact that neither are they an indigenous group nor is the Jewish nationhood a new phenomenon in Palestine; the Jewish nation was born during 40 years of wandering in the Sinai more than five thousand years ago and has remained connected with Palestine ever since. “Even after the destruction of the last Jewish commonwealth in the first century, the Jewish people maintained their own autonomous political and legal institutions: the Davidic dynasty was preserved in Baghdad until the thirteenth century through the rule of the Exilarch (Resh Galuta), while the return to Zion was incorporated into the most widely practiced Jewish traditions, including the end of the Yom Kippur service and the Passover Seder, as well as in everyday prayers. Thus, Jewish historic rights were kept alive in Jewish historical consciousness.

Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, never had a separate identity. They always thought of themselves as Arabs rather than as Palestinians. It is a matter of record that the Arabs owe their presence in Palestine to the Ottomans who settled Muslim populations as a buffer against Bedouin attacks and Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian ruler who brought Egyptian colonists with his army in the 1830s. And during all those times when Arabs lived under the Ottoman rule, they never showed any desire for national independence. According to Bernard Lewis, “From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries; it was a group of provincial subdivisions, by no means always the same, within a larger entity.”

Lewis notes, "There had been a steady movement of Jews to the Holy Land throughout the centuries." In 135 CE Jews took part in the Bar Kochba revolt against imperial Rome and even re-established their capital in Jerusalem. Defeated by the most brutal of the Roman legions under the command of the emperor Hadrian, Jews were forbidden to reside in Jerusalem for nearly five hundred years. Once a year on the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, they were allowed to weep at the remains of their destroyed Temple at a spot that came to be called "the Wailing Wall." In the meantime, the Roman authorities renamed Judea as Palestina in order to obliterate the memory of Jewish nationhood.

A resolution adopted by the first Congress of the Muslim Christian Association which met in Jerusalem in February 1919 underlines the Arab understanding of the situation conclusively. It said, "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."

Jerusalem has always remained a Jewish majority – a symbol of Jewish yearning to be an independent nation as they thrived in communities in many of Palestine’s towns. “By 1864, a clear-cut Jewish majority emerged in Jerusalem - more than half a century before the arrival of the British Empire and the League of Nations Mandate. During the years that the Jewish presence in Eretz Israel was restored, a huge Arab population influx transpired as Arab immigrants sought to take advantage of higher wages and economic opportunities that resulted from Jewish settlement in the land. President Roosevelt concluded in 1939 that "Arab immigration into Palestine since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during the whole period."

The present Arab declaration challenging the Jewish character of Israel cannot be ignored because it is not just an expression of dissatisfaction by a minority about their socio-economic situation but a reminder that Islamist radicalism and fundamentalism has now decided to challenge openly the legitimacy of the Jewish state using Arab citizens of Israel as its proxy in Israel. It must not be forgotten that the Israeli Arabs are part and parcel of the same Global Jihad that has been murdering our gallant soldiers on the war fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 

Forum List

Back
Top