AboutDavid Expertise I am an expert in Middle Eastern history, and Israeli history in particular. My main focus is Biblical analysis, the origins of Islam, and medieval and modern historical events in Israel. Everything you see happening in the world today, has a history.
Experience I am a free-lance writer who has previously lived in, and studied the history of, Israel.
Organizations I contribute to the One Israel Fund and will be joining CAMERA shortly.
Question QUESTION: I'm really uninformed about the causes of the current situation in Paelstine.
Do you think you could inform me as far as you can be bothered?
thankkyou for your time!
Peter
ANSWER: Hi Peter,
I really appreciate your honesty about being uninformed on the subject. There's nothing wrong with that. I've met a lot of people who are also uninformed but they believe they are. Consequently, they come across as idiots.
Your question isn't very specific but I'll try to answer it according to what most people commonly want to know. The name "Palestine" was given by the Romans to the Land of Israel in order to erase the Jewish origins of the land. This happened centuries before the first Arab showed up in the country. The people that are known today as "Palestinians" are Arabs, no different from other Arabs and until the 1960s, they had no problem in identifying themselves as Arabs. Since the 60s, they decided to call themselves "Palestinians" for the same reason the Romans decided to call the land Palestine.
The reason why the Arabs hate Israel is because of your traditional anti-Semitism. What distinguishes anti-Semitism and legitimate criticism of Israel is that anti-Semitism is based on lies. And today, the Arabs' favorite lie is that the Jews came to Palestine, stole land from the Arabs and made them refugees in order to create Israel. This is the crux of the "situation" in the Middle East today. Therefore, the whole Arab-Israeli conflict is totally based on a lie - and the Arabs refuse to admit that they are lying.
I recommend 2 websites you might find interesting: www.palestinefacts.com & www.eretzyisroel.org. Good luck.
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QUESTION: okay...so Israel is currently ruled by Jews or Arabs? And who is the majority of
inhabitants- Jews or Arabs? Is this conflict over religion itself (i.e. Judaism vs
Islam, Koran vs Torah), or is it over land? I mean, are there Arabic people who
practice Judaism fighting for Palestine? Israelites who practice Koran fighting
for Israel? Is this at the core of the conflict- the religious belief? or is it
political? I mean, if all the Arabs converted to Judaism, would there be no
Jewish aggression, or if all the Jews converted to Islam would there be no
Arabic aggression? I have heard somwhere that the conflict started at the end
of WW2 when Britain tried to give Israel back to the Jews following the
Holocaust, and the war ensued due to conflict with the Arabs currently
residing there. Can you verify this for me? SORRY FOR SO MANY QUESTIONS!
I'm just deeply interested in Torah, though i am not of Jewish origin and am
quite interested in these affairs now that I'm getting a little older!
thankyou for your time again!
Answer Israel is currently ruled by Jews who form approximately 67% of the entire population (if you also include the so-called "occupied territories"). As far as the nature of the conflict is concerned, it is primarily a result of anti-Semitism as I mentioned before but also just as much over religion as over land. Politics isn't really a factor. Jews and Judaism were the first to live in the country almost 4000 years ago (after the Canaanites of whom, none are left). Jews have lived in Israel ever since. In the 7th century came Islam and the Arabs. The Arabs believed that the Koran was God's final revelation to mankind after going through Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. As the holders of Islam, they believed, therefore, that the Holy Land was meant for them. So they came as occupiers and colonizers and have lived in Israel ever since. Eventually they became the majority population and the indigenous people, the Jews, became the minority. The Arabs never did get rid of their occupying and colonizing mentality. It was, and is, like this today throughout the Middle East, not just Israel.
RE Britain giving Palestine to the Jews after the Holocaust, I've also heard the same thing, though with slight variations. It's not just the Arabs who lie, it's also their supporters around the world. In 1917, the Balfour Declaration was issued which was a promise by Britain to help Palestinian and Diaspora Jews to reestablish Israel. When WWII started, Britain reneged on the agreement because they saw it made the Palestinian Arabs angry. Therefore, Britain didn't give the Jews Palestine after the Holocaust. In fact, Britain militarily tried to prevent the Jews from acquiring Palestine and also prevented European Jewish refugees from the Holocaust from reaching Palestine, even killing some. Eventually, Britain couldn't deal with the conflict any more and finally left the country. Since then, the Arabs, who were allies of Hitler before and during the war, wanted to finish the job Hitler had started. They're still trying to. And to this day, the British wish that the Jewish state would be eradicated. Just listen to BBC reports about Israel and you can hear how venomously hateful and one-sided they are.
Arabs have been killing Jews in Israel continually since around the 17th century. Today, many Jews in Israel and abroad have enthusiastically joined the Arabs. There's an old saying, "The greatest enemy of the Jewish people is the Jewish people". This has been true for millenium. These self-hating Jews belong to such organizations as Peace Now, B'Tselem, Gush Shalom, J-Street, Meretz, Kadima, and many more. Some of their members describe themselves as "Arabs of the Jewish faith" because they are Jews who come from Arab countries. Just as enthusiastic as these, are communities of Arabs of Jewish ancestry but who practice Islam today. They live mostly in the "West Bank" and will emphatically deny any Jewish connection at all, for obvious reasons. As far as I know, there are no Jewish converts to Islam who fight on Israel's side.
Feel free to ask me as many questions as you want. That's why I'm here. Refer to the websites I suggested to you. You will find a wealth of information about the subject, more than what I'm telling you here. The Torah is also a good source. Mark Twain would use it as a history and guide book.
