Comments by "Asaf Brain" (@asafbrain1618) on "uncivilized "
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The term “to question” means to cast doubt. This question has been asked many times here on Quora, and usually by people who have an agenda, a desire to cast doubt about the right of the Jewish People to the State of Israel. Of course most ask, not about Israel, but about Palestine, because the very term “Israel” has been synonymous with the Jewish nation for thousands of years. The most commonly recited biblical verse, said by all observant and many traditional Jews many times each day, as well as before going to sleep, and meant to be recited at death’s door, is “Hear O’ ISRAEL, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One!” Clearly the term “Israel” applies to Jews exclusively.
The historical connection between the land that was once known as Judea, renamed by the Romans as Palestina about five centuries before Arabs defeated the Byzantine Romans and established the Arab hegemony throughout the Middle East, was common knowledge for millennia, particularly due to Christianity, which claimed to have “superseded” the Jewish religion. When Mohammed invented Islam in the seventh century in Mecca, Arabia, he claimed that Islam superseded both Judaism and Christianity. But either way, the fact that the Jews originated in Judea was undeniable.
The Arab mayor of Jerusalem during the late 19th century, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, wrote a letter in March 1899 to the chief Rabbi of France saying: "Zionism in principle is natural, beautiful, and just... Who could contest the rights of the Jews in Palestine? My God, historically it is your country!" Not that he was in favor of Zionism. The objective of his letter was to ask that the Jews renounce their claim to Palestine, not because it was unjust, but because he argued that the Palestine Arabs needed Palestine, while the Jews lived lives of luxury in Europe.
That was back when the Ottoman Empire ruled the Middle East and had ruled since about the time of Christopher Columbus. Half of what was defined by the Allied Powers during the First World War was in the Ottoman Beirut Vilayet, part was in the Damascus Vilayet, and the remainder was the Sanjak of Jerusalem. The region known as Palestine due to its historical and religious significance. Palestine was not a distinct political entity. It was ruled by Turks and populated by Arabs. But even the Arabs knew who held historical title to the land.
The question was never to whom Palestine “belonged” but rather whether Jews should be permitted to immigrate to and reside in Palestine. Once the Ottoman were ousted and the League of Nations drafted the “Mandate for Palestine”, explicitly recognizing the “grounds for the reconstitution of the Jewish national home in Palestine”, and obligating the British “Mandatory Power” to facilitate Jewish immigration and settlement to secure the establishment of the Jewish home, the Arab population responded much the same way the white supremacists in the U.S. react to the immigration of Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, Arabs, and Jews. They argued that Palestine belonged to them and refused to be “replaced” by immigrants invading and colonizing their land.
The “replacement conspiracy theory” goes hand in hand with the “white genocide theory” and is the hallmark of fanatical white supremacy in the U.S. It is not substantially different that the anti-Zionist agitation that took place in Palestine since the 1920’s. Zionism has been portrayed as a “colonialist conspiracy” to replace the Arabs as the dominant ethnicity in Palestine. Replacing the Arabs as the dominant ethnicity in Palestine is then conflated with genocide, just as white supremacists in the U.S. have claimed that replacing white Christians as the dominant ethnicity in the U.S. is ultimately a form of genocide. White supremacists make the same argument that their country is being stolen from under them as the Palestinians and their proponents make.
From the viewpoint of the Jewish People, that Judea “belongs” to Jews was never a question, the fact that the Land of Israel is the homeland of the Jews is an indelible fact of world history, as is the League of Nations Mandate that recognized the right of the Jewish People to return to their homeland. The Jews also never questioned the right of the “existing non-Jewish communities” (as they are described in the Mandate) to live among them with full civil and religious rights. But the fact was that, in 1880, there were nearly 8 million Jews in the world and less than 400,000 Arabs in Palestine. If the Jews were to return, there was little doubt that they would become a majority, replacing Arabs as the dominant ethnicity in Palestine, or so they thought. Nevertheless, if you read Theodor Herzl’s “Altneuland” you will be surprised the extent to which the father of Zionism supported equality between the Arab minority and the Jewish majority, in his utopian imagination of what the prospective Jewish State would have been like. But the violence and animosity of the Arabs not only prevented a Jewish majority to be reached, despite the six million Jews being slaughtered by the Nazis during the same period of time, but also demonstrated to the Jews the inevitability that Arabs would never agree to live in peace with them.
The only people who ask to whom a land “belongs” are those who contend that they, or those who they advocate for, are entitled to it, rather than those who possess it, or are becoming increasingly dominant. Invariably they ignore that there were those who preceded them, be they Native Americans or Judeans. The question to whom Israel or Palestine “belongs” is inappropriate. It made sense, perhaps, at the start of the process of the Jewish “ingathering of the exiles”. Today fully one half of the Jews in the world live in Israel. To question the right of Jews to live in Israel is an attempt to deprive half a nation of their homes. How can that not be viewed as an aggressively anti-Jewish position?
It was never the objective of Zionism to be a conspiracy against Palestine’s Arab community. The objective of Zionism was for the Jewish People to be restored to their former independence and liberty, by achieving self-determination in their ancestral home. But I can understand how it can also be construed, from the Arab perspective, as a conspiracy to replace them. Ironically one thing Zionism most certainly did not do was commit genocide, neither in the sense that the emergence of Israeli identity “replaced” the “Palestinian” identity, nor in the classic sense where people are systematically murdered such as was the case with the Nazi Holocaust. In fact Israel’s agreement to establish the Palestinian Autonomy in 1993 brought about the first time in recent history that Palestine Arabs have actually governed themselves rather than being governed by foreign powers.
The Arab “Palestinian” identity was first used after the Zionist movement had already been founded in 1897. For most of the Mandate, when the term “Palestinian” was mentioned it referred specifically to Palestine Jews. Since Israel has come into existence the number of people claiming the Palestinian identity skyrocketed from 1.2 million to arguably between 11 and 13 million, while the general world population rose by a factor of three, and the Jewish population by a mere 36%, not even recovering from the actual genocide that reduced the Jewish people from 17 to 11 million in the 1940’s. The Palestine Arabs’ replacement had the exact opposite effect of genocide. The Palestine Arabs’ replacement put them on the map, making theirs what would seem to be the worlds’ number one celebrated cause.
If only they would stop insisting that Palestine belongs exclusively to them, “from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea”, and denying that Jews are entitled to share this land with them, their claim to celebrity might have a more positive, constructive message than what it currently is, that they are oppressed, displaced, and replaced. Their supremacist agenda has only brought them grief. All that would have been necessary to achieve prosperity would have been to embrace the principles of cooperation, compromise and coexistence. It is sad that they cannot accept that the path to prosperity is through peace, not violence and hatred. It’s not too late, but time is running out.
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It all depends on what metric you’re using.
From a purely legal standpoint, both populations - Jews and Arabs - have a claim to sovereignty in historic Israel. Jews are the legally recognized stewards of everything from Eylat to Metulla, with the exception of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza. The latter two regions are expected to become part of a future Palestinian state, notwithstanding possible border adjustments.
However, when we look at it through the prism of indigenous rights and de-colonization, Jews have the stronger claim.
In terms of ethnogenesis (i.e., the principal yardstick of indigeneity), Jews qua Jews are 100% autochthonous to the land of Israel/Canaan. We are so named because we hail from the southern Israelite kingdom of Judah. Israelites, in turn, are a Canaanite population who gradually abandoned polytheism in favor of monotheism over the span of the 1st millennium BCE.
Lastly, Canaanites are the native/original people of the Levant - the parent population of Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Phoenicians, Israelites and, by extension, today’s Jews and Samaritans. Consequently, Jews are the original people of this land. Our national identity, national language, national religion, core culture, holidays, folklore, and laws all sprang directly from the land of Canaan and from our Canaanite/Israelite ancestors. Our genetic ancestry is likewise Canaanitic - predominantly so in the case of Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardi Jews.
Palestinians also claim indigeneity to this land, based on blood quantum (i.e., percentage of native ancestry) and longstanding presence. These claims are often accompanied by the statement that today’s Jews - Ashkenazim especially - are frauds who “have nothing to do with this region”, and are just a mad religious cult of Europeans who converted to Judaism at some point in the past and are laying claim to another people’s land based on a text written 3000 years ago.
It is powerful propaganda, even if blatantly false about the accusation that Ashkenazim are frauds. The sweeping, romantic, exciting, and emotionally gripping tale of an oppressed, dark-skinned, millenarian underdog standing strong against a timeless villain that the whole world loves to hate. What progressive-minded person (especially one already predisposed to Jew-hatred) wouldn't immediately fall in love with this cause?
There is just one problem…
In no other context would we tolerate the idea that an indigenous people can be literally exiled out of their identity and rights, or that a colonial power can rightfully usurp both by sheer dint of conquest. These are both “might makes right” arguments, which are the hallmark of colonialism.
And this creates a slippery slope wherein indigenous rights are endangered not only in the Middle East, but throughout the globe.
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@astrodas1910 By any measure other than some people's emotional responses, Israel clearly belongs to the Jewish people, though as a democratic country with mostly secular laws, between 20 and 25% of Israel's population is non-Jewish, and they share the same rights as Jews.
Historically, the land clearly belonged to the Jews, who were one of the native people, long before it ever came under Arab control. Jews evolved as a distinct people, with a different language and religion and culture, starting around 1700 BCE (3700 years ago). None of the other native groups exist as a distinct people anymore - they all assimilated into various other empires or nationalities, but the Jews maintained their connection and their claim to the land since ancient times all the way to today.
There were only ever two independent countries on that land until 1948. Both were Jewish - the Kingdom of Israel, and then the Kingdom of Judah (some say Judea). For the rest of history, the land was ruled by foreign conquerors, as a part of their colonial empires.
The latter was certainly the case with the Arabs, who conquered the land in 632-637 CE (less than 1400 years ago), as part of the holy war in which they spread out from THEIR homeland, in the Arabian Peninsula, and conquered most of the Middle East, part of Europe, and much of North Africa. For them to now claim ownership of those lands, because 1400 years ago they killed or subjugated the native peoples, just isn't rational.
Tens of thousands of archaeological artifacts, plus the written histories of numerous other ancient peoples (including the Arabs, themselves) make this history perfectly clear.
FYI, the name "Palestine" was given to the land by the Roman conquerors, named after the worst historical enemy of the Jewish people, as a way of punishing the Jews for rebelling against Roman rule.
As far as modern law, national ownership of land is determined by binding treaties and international agreements. The last such binding document is the Palestine Mandate, which CLEARLY gives all of Israel, including the "West Bank" (more correctly called Judea and Samaria) and Gaza to ISRAEL. As part of the same mandate, the Jews were also supposed to get what is now Jordan, but the terms of the mandate were changed to make that Arab land.
So there actually is an Arab "Palestine", it just doesn't use that name. BTW, Jordan got 78% of the land, while the Jews only got 22%. So when they complain that the split was not "fair", well, judge for yourself
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@phillustrator By any measure other than some people's emotional responses, Israel clearly belongs to the Jewish people, though as a democratic country with mostly secular laws, between 20 and 25% of Israel's population is non-Jewish, and they share the same rights as Jews.
Historically, the land clearly belonged to the Jews, who were one of the native people, long before it ever came under Arab control. Jews evolved as a distinct people, with a different language and religion and culture, starting around 1700 BCE (3700 years ago). None of the other native groups exist as a distinct people anymore - they all assimilated into various other empires or nationalities, but the Jews maintained their connection and their claim to the land since ancient times all the way to today.
There were only ever two independent countries on that land until 1948. Both were Jewish - the Kingdom of Israel, and then the Kingdom of Judah (some say Judea). For the rest of history, the land was ruled by foreign conquerors, as a part of their colonial empires.
The latter was certainly the case with the Arabs, who conquered the land in 632-637 CE (less than 1400 years ago), as part of the holy war in which they spread out from THEIR homeland, in the Arabian Peninsula, and conquered most of the Middle East, part of Europe, and much of North Africa. For them to now claim ownership of those lands, because 1400 years ago they killed or subjugated the native peoples, just isn't rational.
Tens of thousands of archaeological artifacts, plus the written histories of numerous other ancient peoples (including the Arabs, themselves) make this history perfectly clear.
FYI, the name "Palestine" was given to the land by the Roman conquerors, named after the worst historical enemy of the Jewish people, as a way of punishing the Jews for rebelling against Roman rule.
As far as modern law, national ownership of land is determined by binding treaties and international agreements. The last such binding document is the Palestine Mandate, which CLEARLY gives all of Israel, including the "West Bank" (more correctly called Judea and Samaria) and Gaza to ISRAEL. As part of the same mandate, the Jews were also supposed to get what is now Jordan, but the terms of the mandate were changed to make that Arab land.
So there actually is an Arab "Palestine", it just doesn't use that name. BTW, Jordan got 78% of the land, while the Jews only got 22%. So when they complain that the split was not "fair", well, judge for yourself
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There are states all over the world formed in all sorts of ways, including by blatant conquest, which is true of - among other places - the entire Western Hemisphere. There are countries that oppress minority populations heavily, including countries that oppress Palestinians more than Israel can be construed of doing. There are countries and entities way more oppressive of their own people, in general, of women in particular, and of gays in particular. There are countries that occupy or attempt to occupy their neighbors, like Turkey does with Cyprus or like Russia is attempting to do with Ukraine or like China would like to do with Taiwan, which hasn’t been in its political control for over seventy years. There are entities which target civilian populations way more, including Hamas, ISIS, Syria, and Russia, to name four. There are countries who have ejected minority populations, like most of the Arab world, to the point where the Jewish population of the Arab world currently numbers fewer than four thousand, while Israel’s Arab population, meaning Israeli citizens, is about two million, or roughly five hundred times the Jewish population of the entire Arab world combined, a population which originally exceeded the number of Palestinians who left Israel when Israel was formed, voluntarily and involuntarily combined. There are governments way more based on religion, certainly including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Hamas.
And yet the only country whose legitimacy you choose to question is the Jewish one.
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@rft9776 There are states all over the world formed in all sorts of ways, including by blatant conquest, which is true of - among other places - the entire Western Hemisphere. There are countries that oppress minority populations heavily, including countries that oppress Palestinians more than Israel can be construed of doing. There are countries and entities way more oppressive of their own people, in general, of women in particular, and of gays in particular. There are countries that occupy or attempt to occupy their neighbors, like Turkey does with Cyprus or like Russia is attempting to do with Ukraine or like China would like to do with Taiwan, which hasn’t been in its political control for over seventy years. There are entities which target civilian populations way more, including Hamas, ISIS, Syria, and Russia, to name four. There are countries who have ejected minority populations, like most of the Arab world, to the point where the Jewish population of the Arab world currently numbers fewer than four thousand, while Israel’s Arab population, meaning Israeli citizens, is about two million, or roughly five hundred times the Jewish population of the entire Arab world combined, a population which originally exceeded the number of Palestinians who left Israel when Israel was formed, voluntarily and involuntarily combined. There are governments way more based on religion, certainly including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Hamas.
And yet the only country whose legitimacy you choose to question is the Jewish one.
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@Misbah_Queen it doesn't matter whether the Situation that made Israel Exist is Moral, since Israel already Exists, so it still has the Right to Exist
some might say that Israel has been formed from Jews spilling the blood of Palestinians, I’m not gonna Argue here whether that claim is true or not, but even if it is, you have to consider that:
America was formed from Anglo-Saxon Settlers Spilling the Blood of Natives, does the give the Natives the right to Destroy America if they can in Revenge of their Ancestors?
Britain was formed from Anglo-Saxons Spilling the Blood of Celtic Britons, does the give the Irish the right to Destroy the UK if they can in revenge of their Celtic kin?
France was formed from Roman Settlers Spilling the Blood of Celtic Gauls, does the give the Irish the right to Destroy France, Populated, by mixed descendants of those Roman settlers, if they can in revenge of their Celtic kin?
Germany has Perpetrated the Holocaust and spilled Jewish blood, does the give Israel the right to Destroy Germany in Revenge of their Ancestors
AND SO ON
Sure, the Past was Horrible, but in the end of the day, Revenge killings will only cause more to Suffer in the Present while not Achieving Anything and the mindset of Revenge killings is not Compatible anymore if we want to live in Peace in the Modern World
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