Palestine (Below)
You may be surprised to
learn that for the most part ancient history is not relevant to the modern-day
conflict over the “Holy Land”. However
there is a common misperception that the Israeli – Arab conflict has gone on
‘for centuries’ or even millennia and that Israel stands alone in her struggle
to survive.
So, a little historical
background is probably a good idea.
The people of Israel
(also called the “Jewish People”) trace their origin to Abraham, who according
to Biblical history established the belief that there is only one God; who is
the creator of the universe. Abraham,
his son Yitshak (Isaac), and his grandson Jacob (Israel), are denoted as being
the patriarchs of the Israeli people.
For this reason most of us often perceive folks that call themselves
“Jewish” (especially those in Palestine) to have deep religious bonds.
Before the Hebrews /
Jews first migrated to Canaan sometime after 1800 BC
(you’ll likely recall this celebrated event as is depicted
in the 1956 motion picture, The Ten
Commandments, based upon the exploits described in the Book of Exodus of The Holly
Bible), the land of Canaan or modern day Palestine was occupied by
Canaanites. In the early days (3000BC
– 1100BC)
the Canaanite civilization covered the territory that is modern day Israel, the
West Bank, Lebanon, and a large part of both Syria and Jordan.
According to the Book of Exodus, after 40 years of
wandering around in the Sinai Desert, Moses led the Hebrews / Jews to the Land which
would become Israel; yep, wouldn’t you
know it, the very same land promised by God himself to the descendants of the
Jewish patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (See: Genesis
17:8).
By 1300BC
the children of Abraham had created a nation, destined to be conquered by Rome in
63BC.
You could say the original Jewish state didn’t come to an end until 70AD
though,
when the Romans begin to actively drive many of the Jews from the homes they had lived in
for several hundred years.
Some time latter, Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonian
(modern day Iraq) deported the Judean’s (the southernmost of the three traditional divisions of
ancient Palestine; the other two were Galilee in the north and Samaria in the
center) in 597BC and 586BC,
but he did allow them to remain in a unified community, in Babylon. Another group
of Judean’s fled to Egypt, where they settled in the Nile delta. From 597BC
onwards, there were three distinct groups of Hebrews: a group in Babylon and
other parts of the Middle East, a small group in Judaea, and a third group in
Egypt. For this reason, 597BC,
is considered the beginning date of the “Jewish Displacement”.
Bet you non-Muslims didn’t know that the religion of Islam has been present since the time of the
prophet Adam. Muslims
(those of the Islamic faith) also believe
that the ancient Jews: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, among others, were all
Islamic prophets, and they have equal footing in the Qur’an; that makes Muhammad the last Muslim prophet but he’s special
because he is credited with unifying Arabia into a single religious community
under Islam. By the way, the term “Muslim”
is an Arabic word meaning “one who submits to God”, which suggests strong
religious ties. So two (2) “religious
It may come as a small
surprise to learn that it wasn’t until 638AD
that the the Arab Islamic Empire gained
control of the Palestine region and according to one estimate, the Jews still numbered
somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 living, breathing souls in the Palestine
region.
Regardless, after the Arab
conquest, the majority of the population (including many Jews) became “Arabized”
in both culture and language; many also adopted the new faith of Islam, perhaps
in large part due to the practice the Muslims adopted of banning the construction
of new Jewish synagogues and the establishment of the general understanding
that “the only good Jew was a dead Jew”. In any event, various Muslim dynasties
maintained “law & order” in Palestine until the first of the seven Christian Religious Crusades
took control in 1099.
Palestine was absorbed
into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 and remained under the rule of the Turks until after
World War I. Towards the end of WWI, the Turks were defeated by the British forces. In the peace talks that followed, parts of the Ottoman Empire were handed over to the French to control
and other parts were handed over to the British – which included Palestine.
To the Arab population who lived there, it was their homeland; it had been promised to them by the Allies for help in defeating the Turks during WWI; surprise, surprise, the British claimed the agreement gave no such promise.
To make matters worse,
the same area of land had also been promised to the Jews (at least as they had
interpreted it) in the Balfour
Declaration of 1917 which led the Jewish community in Britain and America
into believing that Great Britain would surely support the creation of a Jewish state
in the Middle East; so after 1920, many Jews migrated to the Palestine area and
lived among the far more numerous Arabs. During this time, the area was ruled
by the British and both Arabs and Jews appeared to live together in some form
of harmony, but only in the sense that both tolerated the existence of the other. There
were problems in 1921 but between that year and 1928, the situation appeared to have stabilized.
You could say that the dilemma
or problems arising after the war for the Palestine region was “perceived beliefs”. You see, since the Arabs had joined the Allies to
fight the Turks during WWI so they convinced themselves that they were due to be
given what the Arabs believed was to be their home-land after the war was over.
On the other hand, and
clashing with this perception, was the belief among all Jews that the Balfour Declaration of 1917 assured them
the same piece of territory. And then too, God himself had promised the land to them in years past.
In August 1929,
relations between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine broke down, spawning real
violence. The focal point of this discontent was the city of Jerusalem, which naturally has strong religious ties to each group, but the primary
cause of trouble was the increased influx of Jews who had immigrated to
Palestine. You see, the number of Jews in the region had doubled in ten years
and yes, to make matters worse, the city of Jerusalem had major religious (see previous Post) significance for both Arabs and Jews.
The violence that
occurred in August of 1929 did not deter Jews from going to Palestine as you might
think. Fact is, records show for example that in 1931 alone 4,075 Jews immigrated
to the region. In 1935, the influx was an additional 61,854. Arab leaders
figured that by the 1940’s there would be more Jews in Palestine than Arabs and
that their power in the region would be squelched on a simple numerical basis.
In May of 1936, more violence occurred and the
British “restored” law and order by using military force, but not without thirty-four of their soldiers being killed in the process along with an untold number
of Arabs and Jews. It came as little
surprise when the violence did not stop; in fact, it only got worse.
For the Arabs there
were two enemies – the Jews and the British authorities based in Palestine. And
for the Jews there were also two enemies – the Arabs and the British.
Ultimately, the British
were pushed into the middle of a conflict they clearly had little control over perhaps
because the two other sides involved were so driven by their own beliefs or
perceptions. In an attempt to end the
violence, the British put a quota on the number of Jews who could enter
Palestine in any given year. They hoped to appease the Arabs with this action
but from the Arab’s point of view they were siding with the Jews by recognizing
that Jews could enter Palestine in the first place. To add insult to injury,
the Jews were angry with the British because they were restricting immigration.
So the British found
themselves under attack by both the Jews and the Arabs. The Arabs attacked
because they believed that the British had failed to keep their word for the
“promised homeland” after WWI; plus they believed that the
British were not keeping the Jewish quotas in place as they did little to stop
illegal landings into Palestine made by the Jews.
Then too, the Jews
attacked the British authorities in Palestine because of the immigration
quota which they believed was grossly unfair along with the fact that the
British had also imposed restrictions on the amount of land Jews could buy in
Palestine.
An uneasy truce
occurred during WWII as hostilities seemed to cease. This truce, however, was
only temporary. As fate would have it, many
Jews had fought for the Allies during the Second World War and had developed expert
military talents. So guess what? Shortly
after the war ended in 1945, these same skills were used in; you guessed it, acts of terrorism!
Almost immediately,
Israel was attacked by surrounding Arab nations (Egypt,
Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen) in a war that
lasted from May 1948 to January 1949. The result of the war was not
particularly favorable to the Arab Palestinians: Around 750,000 Palestinian
Arabs had fled or were expelled from their homes, out of approximately 1,200,000
Arabs who had been living in Palestine.
Today, many Palestinian Arabs continue
to refuse to recognize Israel and it has
become the turn of the Israeli government itself to suffer from terrorist
attacks when fanatics from the Palestinian Arabs community attacked Israel
almost routinely.
The bottom line: To the
Palestinian Arabs, the area the Jews call Israel, will always be Palestine. To
the Jews it is Israel. There have been very few years of peace in the region
since May of 1948.
That’s a very brief
account of the events that have led to the deadly quagmire we currently see in
the Middle East, particularly in the regions of Gaza, The West Bank, and all of Israel.
Perhaps the only “saving grace” issue in the ongoing conflict is simply that the
typical Arab Palestinian does not necessarily believe the region is some sacred
gift from Allah.
Although the recent Arab terror tactics of offering up
innocent men, women, and children as “sacrificial lambs” in an obvious effort
to taint the “defensive” / “offensive” (depending on if you are Jewish or
Arabic) efforts of the Israelis, leaves most of the civilized world community
in disgust; most Americans would probably be very surprised and seriously
disenchanted if they knew that:
Ø Israel
is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War
II. To date, the United States has provided Israel $121 billion (current, or
non-inflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance.
Ø Almost
all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance,
although in the past Israel also received significant economic assistance.
Ø Strong
congressional support for Israel has resulted in Israel receiving benefits not
available to any other countries; for example, Israel can use some U.S.
military assistance both for research and development in the United States and for military purchases from Israeli
manufacturers as well.
Ø U.S.
assistance earmarked for Israel is generally delivered in the first 30 days of
the fiscal year, while most other recipients normally receive aid in
installments, and Israel (as is also the case with Egypt) is permitted to use
cash flow financing for its U.S. arms purchases.
Ø Receiving
U.S. State Department-administered foreign assistance, Israel also receives
funds from annual defense appropriations bills for rocket and missile defense
programs.
Ø Israel
pursues some of those programs jointly with the United States.
Ø In 2007, the Bush Administration
and the Israeli government agreed to a 10-year, $30 billion military aid
package for the period from 2009 to 2018. During his March 2013 visit to Israel, President Obama pledged that the United
States would continue to provide Israel with multi-year commitments of military
aid subject to the approval of Congress.
Ø The
2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 113-76) provides the President’s
full $3.1 billion request for Israel. In
addition, it provides another $504 million in funding for research,
development, and production of Israel’s Iron
Dome anti-rocket system ($235 million) and of the joint U.S.-Israel missile
defense systems David’s Sling ($149.7
million), the Arrow improvement
program (or Arrow II, $44.3 million),
and Arrow III ($74.7 million).
Ø For
2015, the Administration is requesting $3.1 billion in military funding to
Israel and $10 million in Migration and Refugee Assistance. The Missile Defense
Agency’s 2015 request for joint U.S. - Israeli programs is $96.8 million. The Obama
Administration also is requesting $175.9 million for Iron Dome.
Ø Finally and in summation: The U.S.
provides Israel $8.5 million in military aid each
day!
You can’t put it much
better than this:
“Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a
level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been
the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance
since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct
U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel
receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is
roughly one-fifth of America’s entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms,
the United States gives each Israeli citizen a direct subsidy worth about $500 per
year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now
a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South
Korea or Spain.”
-
John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
When taking into account the state of the US economy,
one should perhaps wonder how much longer the Israeli Lobby can managed to keep the Washington “money spout” open so completely. Or in the alternative,
what will happen in Palestine when America’s “money well” goes dry. Since Israel now ranks 50th in economic power, among the 196 nations of the
world, probably nothing new.
Sources:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stat/usaid.html
http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf
http://www.science.co.il/Israel-history.php
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-17-8/ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Diaspora.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/307117/Judaea
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/forget.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(597_BC)
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/palestine_1918_to_1948.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War#Arab_forces
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/439645/Palestine/45065/Ottoman-rule
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.crystalinks.com/palestinemap.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.crystalinks.com/palestine.html&h=269&w=187&tbnid=9eo973gDi3A6dM:&zoom=1&tbnh=160&tbnw=111&usg=__Z-vT_5XCSN9UIq27ZYgeh-1u1Tk=&docid=o7WamuJy29MBjM&itg=1&hl=en&sa=X&ei=j_vWU8ziFdfooASx4YHACw&sqi=2&ved=0CIoBEPwdMBA
http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf (US Foreign Aid to
Israel) http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0932875.html
I'd say you're right on both reckonings!
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