Common Folk Using Common Sense

Trackbacked at AbbaGav:

There’s been a good deal of international media coverage of the terrible condition of Palestine, and of Palestinians, on May 14th. What is so important about May 14? I’ve read words such as “refugee camp”, “establishment of Israel“, “displacement”, “58th anniversary of ‘al-Nakba,’ or ‘the catastrophe’”. One can’t help but wonder why mean old Israel is beating up on poor Palestine – until you study historical fact.

That’s where I come in. I know you’re not going to take the time to do this yourself. You’re not going to hear or read any of this in the mainstream media. Acedemia is not going to teach any of this. So I, a dumb redneck from Georgia, will try and teach you a fact or two. Not rhetoric or urban legend, but undebatable facts.

“Palestine” has never been the name of a nation or state. It is a geographical term, used to designate the region at those times in history when there is no nation or state there. Just try to find an old map settlement, Palestine was virtually laid waste, and its population suffered acute decline. In the twelve and a half centuries between the Arab conquest in the seventh century and the beginnings of the Jewish return in the 1880′s, Palestine was barren. Its ancient canal and irrigation systems were destroyed and the wondrous fertility of which the Bible spoke vanished into desert and desolation. Under the Ottoman empire of the Turks, the policy of disfoliation continued; the hillsides were denuded of trees and the valleys robbed of their topsoil.

American author Mark Twain expressed scom for what he called the “romantic” and “prejudiced” accounts of Palestine after he visited the Holy Land in 1867. In one location after another, Twain registered gloom at his findings: “Stirring scenes … occur in the valley [Jezreel] 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.”

The current claim that Arab-Muslim “Palestinians” are “emotionally tied” to “their own plot of land in Palestine”, based upon a “consistent presence” on “Arab” land for “thousands of years”, is nothing more than myth.

So this place that is today so hotly contested was, for centuries, a wasteland with few inhabitants. This area would only become “remarkable” after Jews began settling there – such is the level of hatred that Arabs have for Jews.

A “Palestinian” is – according to the United Nations, anyone spent two years in Palestine before 1948, they and their decendants – with or without proof or documentation – are “Palestinians”. This definition was specifically designed to include migrant workers. This is sort of like using the phrase “American” to include anyone that has been living within US borders for the last two years, including any undocumented Mexican immigrants and migrant workers.

The word itself derives from “Peleshet”, a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as “Philistine”. The Philistines were mediterranean people originating from Asia Minor and Greek localities. They reached the southern coast of Israel in several waves.

The Philistines were not Arabs nor even Semites, they were most closely related to the Greeks. They did not speak Arabic. They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs. The name “Falastin” that Arabs today use for “Palestine” is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Greco-Roman “Palastina”; which is derived from the Plesheth, was a general term meaning ‘migratory’. This referred to the Philistine’s invasion and conquest of the coast from the sea.

The use of the term “Palestinian” for an Arab ethnic group is a modern political creation which has no basis in fact – and had never had any international or academic credibility before 1967.

The rule of Israelites in the land of Israel starts with the conquests of Joshua (ca. 1250 BCE). The period from 1000-587 BCE is known as the “Period of the Kings”. The most noteworthy kings were King David (1010-970 BCE), who made Jerusalem the Capital of Israel, and his son Solomon (Shlomo, 970-931 BCE), who built the first Temple in Jerusalem as prescribed in the Tanach (Old Testament).

In 587 BCE, Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar’s army captured Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and exiled the Jews to Babylon (modern day Iraq). The year 587 BCE also marks a turning point in the history of the region. From this year onwards, the region was ruled or controlled by a succession of superpower empires of the time in the following order: Babylonian, Persian (538-333 BCE), Greek Hellenistic (333-63 BCE), Roman (63 BCE-313 CE) and Byzantine Empires (313-636), Islamic (636-1099) and Christian crusaders (1099-1291), the Mamluk (1291-1516), Ottoman Empire (1516-1918), and the British Empire (1917-1948). You did notice the absence of a Palestinian people, didn’t you?

So what happened in 1967 to cause the word “Palestinian” to become a term for an Arab ethnic group? That would be the crushing “Six-Day” defeat of Arab aggressors by Israel. But let’s look at the lead-in to the Six-Day War of 1967.

In 1923, after World War I, the British divided the “Palestine” portion of the Ottoman Empire into two administrative districts. Jews would be permitted only west of the Jordan river. In effect, the British had “chopped off” 75% of the originally proposed Jewish Palestinian homeland to form an Arab Palestinian nation called Trans-Jordan (meaning “across the Jordan River”). The remaining 25% of Palestine was to be the Jewish Palestinian homeland. Because no other peoples had ever established a national homeland in “Palestine” since the Jews had done it 2,000 years before, the British “looked favorably” upon the creation of a Jewish National Homeland throughout all of Palestine. Said Charles Krauthammer in The Weekly Standard, May 11, 1998: “Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity: It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store.”

However, sharing was not part of the Arab psychological makeup then nor now.

On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted with a 2/3 majority to partition western Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. Israel proclaimed itself a nation on May 14, 1948, with David Ben-Gurion as Prime Minister. Britain ended its Palestinian mandate on May 15, 1948. The Jews were to be granted what appears on the map in blue. Over 75% of the land allocated to the Jews was desert. Desperate to find a haven for the remnants of European Jewry after the Holocaust, the Jewish population accepted the plan which accorded them a diminished state. The Jews had already begun mass immigration into Palestine in the 1880′s in an effort to rid the land of swamps and malaria and prepare for the rebirth of Israel. This Jewish effort to revitalize the land attracted an equally large immigration of Arabs from neighboring areas who were drawn by employment opportunities and healthier living conditions. There was never any attempt to “rid” the area of what few Arabs there or those Arab masses that immigrated into this area along with the Jews.

The Arabs, intent on preventing any Jewish entity in Palestine, rejected it, employing outside forces and arms from Arab states as distant as Iraq to prevent the creation of the Jewish state, a series of killings and counterkillings that would continue for decades. Thousands of Arabs, including the more affluent, left for nearby Arab states before Jewish statehood. When Israel’s independence was declared in 1948, the Arab forces combined to crush it. But each time they failed.

The Arabs not only rejected partition, but attacked Israel from all sides. On the day that Israel declared its independence, the Arab League Secretary, General Azzam Pasha declared “jihad”, a holy war. He said, “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades”. The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Husseini stated, “I declare a holy war, my Moslem brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!” The armies of lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq invaded the tiny new country with the declared intent of destroying it.

The only problem for the Arabs was that their holy war failed. The Arabs didn’t murder all the Jews. The Arabs didn’t destroy Israel. As a matter of fact Israel kicked the Arabs hard and grabbed up a few extra acres in the process. Not bad for a country that was less than 2 days old.

In 1949 Israel signed armistice agreements with Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Transjordan, which in April 1949 changed its name to Jordan. One of the major consequences of this was Jordan’s annexation of Judea and Samaria. This annexation was not recognized by the international community, with the exception of Britain and Pakistan. This territory became a launching ground for constant terrorist attacks against Israel’s civilian population. Yes, I used the word “civilian”, not “military”. So now Israel is a bit larger than it was in 1948, with the West Bank controled by Jordan and the Gaza Strip controled by Egypt.

During the early months of 1966, it became clear that Israel’s neighbors were escalating activities against her. More and more Israeli civilians were killed in attacks coming from the Syrian and Jordanian borders. The Syrians, from atop the Golan Heights, shelled Israeli towns indiscriminately. Here we have Arabs attacking Israeli civilians, not just Israeli military. Neither the UN nor the international community did much to help Israel – sort of like things are today.

>

- On May 15, 1967, Egyptian forces moved into the Sinai. - On May 18, 1967, Egypt expelled the U.N. Peacekeeping forces from Israel’s borders. - On May 22, 1967, the Egyptians closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. - On May 25, 1967, encouraged by Egypt – Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia moved their troops to Israel’s borders. - On May 26, 1967, President Nasser of Egypt declared, “Our basic goal is the destruction of Israel.” Modelled after the November 1966 Egyptian-Syrian “defence” pact, other pacts were signed by Egypt with Jordan and Iraq on May 30th and June 4th, thereby completing the encirclement of Israel.

Israel had enough. An attack was imminent from every side. Rhetoric and sermons were being preached to the Arabs about the impending destruction of israel. Israel could just sit there and wait for death – or act. They chose to act.

With tensions mounting, the Straits of Tiran blocked, and Arab armies poised to strike, Israel decided (on June 5th 1967) to launch a pre-emptive attack on the massive Egyptian forces aimed at her. Within 190 minutes the backbone of the Egyptian airforce was broken, and by the end of the first day of war 298 Egyptian airplanes were destroyed. Backed by complete air superiority, Israeli army divisions then thrust into the Sinai desert approaching the bank of the Suez Canal.

At the same time, Israel issued an appeal to Jordan to stay out of the war. Jordan refused and opened a heavy artillery barrage on both west Jerusalem and the Tel-Aviv area which forced Israel to counterattack. By June 8th the Israel Defence Forces defeated the Jordanian forces and captured the whole of Judea and Samaria.

On the morning of June 9th, Israel attacked the Syrians and captured the Golan Heights. From these heights, Syria had shelled and destroyed 205 houses, 175 acres of orchards and 75 acres of grain.

The six days of fierce figthing ended in Israel’s occupation of the Sinai desert and the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the West Bank, providing Israel’s cities with a much needed buffer zone and dramatically reducing the danger of extinction by a surprise Arab attack. Furthermore, victory had a special religious meaning because of the unification of Jerusalem and the return of Jews to Judea and Samaria which was part of biblical Israel. This time, however, Israel did not withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines. International guarantees had proved meaningless in the past, and could not provide the security Israel’s civilians needed to live their lives free of terrorist attacks. The cease-fire lines of 1967, shown on this map, remained Israel’s borders until 1973. Terrorist raids from Egypt ended, and other raids, from Jordan and Syria, greatly diminished.

It is the author’s opinion that Israel should have stopped here, retaining the new terrority they captured during this war. Unfortunately, the world saw things differently and considered Israel an “occupier” of this disputed “West Bank” and the Gaza Strip along with the 850,000 Palestinian Arabs living there. These Arabs would refer to themselves as “refugees”.

Now you know the story. These are the events as they actually happened. Nearly the whole of the Arab world had tried, multiple times, to kill every living Jew in the Middle East. Each time Israel defended herself, many times with little or no assistance from the rest of the international community. It would appear that the Holocaust is not over yet.

So what about May 14, and what was with all the media reporting on that day? The Palestinians consider May 14 to be ‘al-Nakba,’ or ‘the catastrophe,’ – the day of the creation of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948. The author believes that the true ‘catastrophe’ is the command from the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Husseini, when he stated, “I declare a holy war, my Moslem brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!” – a command that echoes today. To the left is the current map of Israel, very much like the 1949 cease-fire agreement. What is a “Palestinian”? It’s really not a true “people” but rather a “cause” – with the rallying cry to wipe Israel off the map – that was created by the media and academia after the Six-Day War as a way to make innocent the Arab aggressors and make guilty the Israeli defenders. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: militant Islam is a cancer on civilization. And like any biological cancer you either deal with it strongly today or it becomes larger and more deadly tomorrow. If you don’t believe me just skip this week’s edition of “American Idol” or “Desperate Housewives” – and read a history book.

Palestine, Palestinian, Israel, Arab

Spread The Word: