THE MYTH OF THE SO-CALLED "PALESTINIANS": My response to Louise Hagan
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BBS: City People BBS
Date: 03-06-94
From: SHLOMOH SHERMAN
To: LOUISE HAGAN
Subj: Palestinian Mythology
Conference: (9) Religion
Louise Hagan wrote:
"I remember when the Palestinians were displaced for the establishment of Israel after WW II. I felt sorry for them then, and I do now. I'm talking about the "people" not the terrorists. Terrorists are murderers, plain and simple. Yes, I believe it's God's will that Israel exist. I just still feel sorry for the displaced. Would you have me feel otherwise? I felt sorry for the displaced Jews after WW II, also."OK. Let's talk about displaced people.
The Land of Israel (whom the gentiles call Palestine) was a Jewish country since the arrival of Abraham. There was always a Jewish presence there. In the years 70 CE and 135 CE, the Romans forcefully removed large numbers of the Jewish population from the LOI and brought them to Rome as slaves.
Nevertheless, the LOI continued as a Jewish country according to G-d's promises. During the 4th century, the Roman Empire became Christian, and Rome turned the LOI into a Byzantine country in which non-Jewish were brought in and settled by Rome. During the 5th century, there was an economic depression in the Eastern Empire and some of the Jewish population moved to neighboring countries to earn a living. At the same time, Rome encouraged more and more gentile Christians to take up residence in the country. Still, the majority of the population was Jewish.
During the 7th century, the newly converted Arab Moslems came up out of the Arabian Penninsula and conquered the LOI, driving out the Byzantines. Many of the native population, both Jewish and non-Jewish were forcefully converted to Islam and the country was forcefully ARABIZED. Those Jews still living there had pressure put upon them to become Moslems. Some did become Moslems and lost their Jewish identity. Those individuals of the population that became Moslem were ARABIZED. That is, they took up the Arab language and for all purposes were acculturated to "look like" Arabs.
From the 7th century onwards, LOI was an ARAB-SPEAKING country. That does not mean that the people living there were "real Arabs". They were not. They were, in fact, descendants of the original Jewish population and of the Greek speaking population that the Byzantines imported to Christianiize the Land.
Towards the end of the first Christian millenium, the Land was under the control of the Turkish Moslems. From the time immediately following the First Crusade, the Land fell into a sad state. The Turks misuded it economically and ecologically. A once fertile Land under Jewish rule now became a forrest-denuded, malarial swamp. Many people, both Jews and non-Jews left. Most of them were gentiles. The population thinned out. Hardly anyone lived there. The Land was administrated by absentee Turkish landlords. It had became a non-productive province and the Turks didnt care one fig about it. They had more lucrative and productive lands to administer.
Starting in the 1500s thru the 1900s, Jews from Europe returned in waves to the LOI. They found a small non-Jewish population scattered here and there throughout the Land. These people were of various nationalities. None of them called themsleves "Palestinians". There was no such entity. The Land was still ARABIZED and the returning Jews were loyal to the Turkish masters. They did everything possible to restore the Land because they loved in a way that no gentile inhabitants had. They cleared much of the swampland and planted trees and made the Land fertile again. The Turks gave them no thanks. The gentile inhabitants had never done anything like that. They had been content to just let the Land go to hell.
As the Land became productive under the hands of the returning Jews, it became more viable and economically productive. The presence of the Jews and their productivity created jobs. Gentile Arabs from the surrounding lands began to pour into LOI to finf work. The Turks encouraged this because they didn't want the Land to become "too Jewish." Beginning in the 19th century, the Turks encouraged Moslems from various countries to come to the LOI, promoising them free land if they did. Many Moslems took up the offer, many of them from BOSNIA came and settled there. THESE WERE EUROPEAN MOSLEMS THAT TOOK ON LOCAL ARAB COLORING AND ASSIMILATED INTO THE NON-JEWISH POPULATION, THEREBY BECOMING "ARABS".
The Turks then began the policy of restricting the Jews to certain areas of the Land, giving the more favored area to Moslems. Much of this area consisted of the present day Judea and Samaria, the so-called "West Bank of Palestine". After the First World War, when the British conquered the Turks, they took the LOI away from the Turks and made it a British "protectorate". They continued to call the Land "Palestine" and called EVERY INHABITANT IN IT, BOTH JEW AND GENTILE, "PALESTINIANS". That name was an English invention just as the "ARAB" inhabitants of the Land had been a TURKISH INVENTION. In those 2 centuries, 19th and 20th, NO ONE WAS DISPLACED EXCEPT JEWS!!!
The British then proceded to do what they have done everywhere they have gone, divide and conquer. They promised both the Jews and the non-Jews that the Land would be given to their communities, but because they were very interested in oil and had a basically anti-Jewish attitude, they favored the "Arabs". The first thing they did was stop all Jewish immigration into the country while they allowed and encouraged gentile immigration. Nationalism was on the rise. The non-Jewish Arabized population of the LOI wanted a national identity and they were content to take the name and identity imposed upon them by the Turks and the British, namely "Palestinians". The Jews did not need to take that identity. They had their own G-d given identity.
The leadership of the "Palestinian" nationalist movement needed a rallying focus, so they used the commonality of religion. Islam became the focus of "Palestinianism". In 1929, a pogrom was organized in Hebron. Every member of the Jewish community there was murdered, man, woman, child. The British knew who the instigators were. They did nothing to apprehand them. In 1936, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem called for another pogrom against the various Jewish communities of the LOI. By that time, the Jews of the LOI had obtained weapons for their own self defense. They fought back. The British moved through all the Jewish areas and confiscated all weapons they found in the hands of Jews. They left the weapons of the Arabs alone.
It was a known fact that the British did not like the Jews because the Jews refused to act like good colonial third world natives. They considered themselves the equals of the British. The British could not stand it. They were used to treating all colonials as second class citizens. The Jews said to them, "We are not natives. We are as good as you." The British did not like that at all. They could depend on the Arabs to act like good little dark skinned boys. That made them comfortable. AND the surrounding Arab countries had OIL!!! Why irritate them by irritating their co-religionists in the LOI?
In order to placate the Arabs, the British told the Jews that they were NOT going to hand over the "whole land of Palestine" to them, only the "west bank of Palestine." Do you know how the "Palestinian leadership rewarded the British?" They signed a deal with the Nazi Germans to advance the German cause in the Middle East. War between Germany and Britain was immanent and everyone knew it. The Germans promised the Arabs that if they would ally themselves with Germany, they (the Germans) would solve the "Jewish problem" for the Arabs at the war's conclusion. The Jews remained loyal to the British government. It didn't matter one whit. In order to gain back the Arab sympathies on the eve of war, the British assured the Arabs that no further Jewish immigration into the Land would be allowed. Ships carrying Jews from Europe tried to enter "Palestine". The British refused them entry and forced them to return to a Europe where the gas chambers awaited them.
WW II broke out. The Arab sympathy was with Germany. They prayed for a German victory. Anwar Sadat, later to become President of Egypt, became a German spy and anti-British terrorist. The Grand Mufti was to be put under arrest by the British but he escaped andfled to Germany, spending the duration of the war there. During the war itself, Jews tried to enter "Palestine" to escape from the Nazis. The British turned them away. After the war, the British continued their policy of not letting Jews enter even though many DISPLACED European Jews had no where else to go.
At this time, the UN wanted the British to give up their mandate on "Palestine". The British further renegged and told the Jews that only part of the "West Bank" would be theirs. They would have to share the area with the non-Jewish residents. The Jews agreed. The Arabs did not. THEY WANTED THE WHOLE LAND FOR THEMSLEVES. The surrounding Arab countries ] told the non-Jewish residents of the Land that when the British left, their armies would come in and drive the Jews into the Sea. The non-Jewish population was encouraged to evacuate the Land in order to open the way for the Arab armies to operate. Many of them did just that, hoping to come back immanently to a land JUDENREIN. The Bitish left in May, 1948. Israel declared itself a state in the truncated area that the British had left them. Five Arab countries attacked Israel. The Jordanian army moved into the area of the "West Bank" that was to become the "Palestinian" state, and instantly annexed it to Jordan. No one protested. Jordan ruled the "Palestinian" state for 19 years. No one protested and said that the "Palestinians" were displaced and had to have their own country.
For 19 years the Jordanians treated their West Bank people like second class citizens. They were denied 3 basic rights. They were not allowed to open factories in the west bank, they were not allowed to build universities on the west bank, no west bank "Arab" was allowed to have a driver's license. No one protested. The Jordanians denied Jews access to their holy places in Jerusalem. No one protested. The Jordanians took tomb stones from Jewish cemetaries and turned them into lutrines. No one protested.
In May, 1967, Egypt and Syria got together and declared war on Israel, threatening to drive the Jews into the Sea. No one protested. King Hussein of Jordan called upon his "Arabs" in the west bank to get knives and kill every Jew that they found. The Israelis warned the Jordanians that if they entered the war, Israel would take the west bank away fomr them. Jordan entered the war and lost the west bank that it had illegally annexed 19 years earlier. The Israelis found evidence of inhumane treatment of people in the West Bank by the Jordanians. No one protested. Everybody was busy protesting against the Israeli "aggressor" and the "poor displaced Palestinians".
Some people have all the propaganda luck. The bleeding heart liberal media went anti-Israel to sell more newspapers. The Soviet Union took up the "Palestinian" cause to win the Arabs over to their side in the cold war. From 1967 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Israel acted as the best ally of the United States, handing over the latest in captured Soviet weaponry to America, asking nothing in return. Israel was repaied by the anti-semitic State Dept of the USA by being pressured to give back territory to the "poor Palestinians".
Meanwhile one thing remains to be told.
In 1948, when Israel bacame a state, there were Arabs living there. The Israelis granted them full citizenship. No Arab was asked to leave Israel.
That same year, Arab countries, including Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Lybia, and others KICKED OUT THEIR JEWISH CITIZENS AND MADE THEM LEAVE ALL THEIR EARTHLY BELONGINGS BEHIND! No one protested.
You call yourself a Christian and you grieve for the poor displaced Palestinians? You are just one more gentile hoodwinked by the Arab propaganda mill, abetted by the anti-Israel media who want to sell newspapers, and the Oil company whores who think oil is more important than justice. Cry your crocodile tears, sister. Don't expect any sympathy from me. The fact that you allow your sympathy for the poor mistreated "non-jews" of the Middle East to over-ride your concern for Biblical prophecy tells me a lot about the so-called Christians in this country who claim to be Bible believers. You are Bible believers so long as it is not good for the Jews. And the hell with real justice and G-d's word.
ADDENDUM June 22, 2003 - Incidently, there never was a national or geographical entity called "Palestine" in the historical sense that we usually ascribe to nations or geography."Palestine" was the designation given to the Land Of Israel by the Romans when they incorporated it into their Empire as a province. They named it after the Philistines, the traditional enemies of Israel, in order to humiliate their new Jewish subjects. Since the Arabs living in the Land Of Israel insist that they are the descendants of the ancient Caananites, why don't they refer to themselves as Caananites rather than Philistines?
--- þ OLX 2.1 TD þ Arab humor: Take my hostage, please!
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