For over two thousand years across the Middle East, Arabs and Jews have lived side by side in relative peace.
Throughout history, Islamic societies and governments have allowed for nominal Jews to practice their faith freely with no frisk asked, while engage in lucrative commerce trade to sort their lives and livelihoods.
The war that followed Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948 saw the former British mandate of Palestine partition between Israel and Trans-Jordan.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their homes and native land during what is referred to as the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe”. The trend of displacement of Palestinian families has continued ever since from Jerusalem, The West Bank, to the Jordan River.
The Palestinian population of around ten or so million people is today divided between historic Palestine and a diaspora, mainly in neighbouring Arab countries. Efforts to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank or the River Jordan and Gaza on the Mediterranean coast have been frustrated by the continuing conflict with Israel, exacerbated by Israeli self-prophecy of a Jewish homeland, deception and war.
If you think the situation could not get any more complex – the status of East Jerusalem as capital for Palestine, or Israel’s claim to the eternal city has further complicated mediation efforts.
A brief look at history
Throughout the Middle East’s long and winding history, tensions between Arabs and Jews have existed. The nature of hostility between the two dates all the way back to Abrahamic times as the two populated the area; a land deemed holy. The city of Jerusalem is considered sacred by Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike, containing Muslim holy sites as Masjid al-Aqsa, the Dome of the Rock, Masjid Omar, the Western Wall for Jews, as well as Christian churches.
From 1517 to 1917, Israel, along with much of the Middle East, was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. World War One dramatically altered the geopolitical landscape of the region, when in 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour submitted a letter of intent supporting the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The British government hoped that the formal declaration – known thereafter as the Balfour Declaration – would encourage support for the Allies in World War I. When the war ended in 1918 with Allied victory, the 400-year Ottoman Empire rule also ended, and Great Britain took control over what became known as Palestine (modern-day Israel, Palestine and Jordan).
The Balfour Declaration had sought to create a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. It was vehemently rejected by all Arab states, concerned that a Jewish homeland would mean the subjugation of Arab Palestinians. The British Mandate continued to [colonise] Palestine until Israel, in the years following the Second World War, became an independent state in 1947.
So how did that happen?
The industrial revolution in Europe and the United States in the 19th century gave rise to extreme riches. Industrialists had gotten filthy rich, helped by compensation payments to merchant slave traders persuaded to give up sold in humans, inhuman that was: Slave traders plying the coasts of West Africa for human cargo had received compensation payments from their governments as Britain, France, Spain and others, encouraged to pursue other lines of commerce – inherited wealth to this day.
Meanwhile, coordinated efforts by Zionist Jews in UK and the US exerted considerable pressure on their governments to create a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. Their claim is premised on the argument that the Holy Land was promised to them by Almighty God.
But there is more to the story than meet the eye – or what fictitious claim certain history books might show. The truth also was that Europe was in a mess after 1945. Because, despite the fact that Nazi Germany was defeated, European leaders were nonetheless covered in shame. That is true of Britain in particular in the lead up to the war, for Downing Street’s cowardly appeasement of Adolf Hitler. Buoyed by this, Jewish groups in London, Boston, New York and other European cities had connived with the British government to support their claim to the Holy Land – given that British mandate over the territory was soon to expire. That illegal action by Britain to connive with Jews in effect expelled Arabs (Palestinians) from their land.
The state of Israel was declared in 1947 – rejected and condemned by all the Arabs states. It brought immediate war as the Arab army sought to defend Palestine, while Israel as ever gained support from British and Americans, however covertly. Seventy-four years later with no clear resolution on the ground, the conflict between Palestine and Israel remains a frozen war situation – designed, loaded and funded en-direct from the centre of London and Washington DC respectively.
Reflection – Inflection, perhaps
The Israel population today lives in constant fear, but for the selfish interest of a corrupt political elite ruling over them. Netanyahu will say and do just about anything to stay in power. And fear it is, unless the Jewish state returns to common sense politics – respect its Arab neighbours, and abide by international law.
Throughout history, every civilisation from the Byzantines, the Romans, the Persians, to the Ottomans, has come to an enthralling end. Similarly, injurious regimes like apartheid in South Africa, to the Jews own dark chapter at the hands of Hitler’s Germany have eventually collapsed. The ‘Great’ British Empire is finished; so, its, succeeding American dollar domination world order en-march towards tentative collapse.
It would be wise on the part of Jewish rabbis to revisit original rabbinic texts and explain the truth to their flock misguided on the book (Torah). Show us original manuscripts, if any – the conditionalities on Sabbath – if you are, indeed, Truthful:
In Chapter 61 (As-Saff) of the Glorious Qur’an, Allah Subhana WataAllah revealed in eloquent terms that:
8. They would like to put out the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah will perfect His light however much the disbelievers are averse.
9. He it is Who has sent His messenger with the Guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it conqueror of all religions however much idolaters may be averse.
These are very powerful verses, I highly recommend anyone to find a copy to read and reflect on entirely. And again, the desperation of the Netanyahu government with war crimes being waged against Palestinians should be condemned by all human beings. The question is, why the silence from the Americans and Europeans, alas, the good old West ever too quick preaching to Arabs on the utility of human rights?
When images of dead Palestinian children and buildings set ablaze from Israeli warplanes are not called war crimes, where is the conscience of the world, I ask you ?! Israel, by all counts, is a terrorist state forged in war and will fall in war, insh’Allah. The Americans and European nations by any measure have burnt the last breath of moral clout there was. Palestine, one can only imagine your pain, helpless, against a tyrant, but for divisions among Muslim lead nations. Israel, your treacherous banditry, aided en-march abetted by allied Western nations must END, for Truth has come, and Falsehood must perish!
