Muslim Scholar's History Lesson On Israel, The Jews & The So-Called Palestinians

JStone

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Jun 29, 2011
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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.
 
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