Ancient Egyptians and Modern Israelis Facing Similar Problem

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

In ancient days of the 18th to 16th centuries BCE, Jacob moved from Canaan to Egypt because of a serious drought in his land.  With the two sons who had been born to Joseph in Egypt, the members of Jacob's family, which went to Egypt, were 70 in all.  Genesis 46:8-27,They stayed and multiplied for 400 years. The Egyptian government was very worried about this increased population that could suddenly turn on Egyptians and take the country, so they attacked first by taking all the Jews or Israelites, as they were then called, as slaves.  From the time they entered till the time they left was 400 years.  

There were Jews in Palestine all this time since 70 CE's fall of Jerusalem, but not a big population even though Jews had been outlawed by the Romans. They were there to greet the 1st Aliyah.  

Then came the 1st Aliyah to Palestine from eastern Europe.  Jewish immigration to Ottoman Palestine from Eastern Europe occurred as part of mass emigrations of approximately 2.5 million people that took place towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. A rapid increase in population had created economic problems that affected Jewish societies in the Pale of Settlement in Russia, Galicia, and Romania.

Persecution of Jews in Russia was also a factor. In 1881, Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated, and the authorities blamed the Jews for the assassination. Consequently, in addition to the May Laws, major anti-Jewish pogroms swept the Pale of Settlement. A movement called Hibbat Zion (love of Zion) spread across the Pale (helped by Leon Pinsker's pamphlet Auto-Emancipation), as did the similar Bilu movement. Both movements encouraged Jews to emigrate to Ottoman Palestine.

       Rishon LeZion, 1st aliyah Founded in 1882 by Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who were part of the First Aliyah, it was the first Zionist settlement founded in the Land of Israel by the New Yishuv and the second Jewish farm settlement established in Ottoman Syria in the 19th century, after Petah Tikva. As of 2017, it was the fourth-largest city in Israel, with a population of 254,384.  In 1881, the First Aliyah of Jews from eastern Europe returned to Palestine due to being under pogroms and anti-Semitism so much.   

 The next year, Arabs followed them, hoping for jobs in building since the Jews were building cities and homes in this deserted land.   The Arabs, now called Palestinians, which both Jew and Arab were called until the creation of Israel in 1948,  had been doing the multiplying and were used by the surrounding Arab nations as pawns to destroy the Jewish goals.  Up until then, the country was devoid of most people with scatterings of Jews and a few nomadic Arabs on camels wandering back and forth.  The land, unkept, full of swamps and mosquitoes or sand, needed a great deal of care.  

Here, we see Jews with the lower population.

1882	24,000	276,000	300,000	8.0%
1914	94,000	595,000	689,000	13.6%

When Israel was created in 1948, we had 600,000 Jews there.  

When Moses had Joshua as the leader leading the Exodus (about 1579 BCE) into Canaan, there were 601,730 Israelites entering. 

From the time of entering in 1882 till 400 years from then takes us to  the year of 2282.  Perhaps by then, only 259 more years, our problem with the Palestinian Arabs will be solved and Israel will be able to live in peace.  It took the Egyptians 400 years to experience having Jews in their midst and now I wouldn't be surprised if Israel is facing the same problem of dealing with Palestinians for 400 years.  We're already feeling that the only resolution is that of the Palestinians giving up their plan of erasing Israel off the map and making the whole land Palestine.  Israelis are not leaving.  They have no place to return to, for this was their original home.  The Arabs all came from surrounding countries, like Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc.                                 

Israelis had already given them Gaza, and that is used as the bombing site where they shoot rockets and mortars from.  

The Israeli population has grown, too, more from anti-Semitism than children being born and surges from certain countries like Russia,  France, Ethiopia and even Ukraine.  The Muslims take 4 wives at a time and produce 4 times more children than Israelis as a whole.  Only the Orthodox Jews have an abundance of children, but who can compete with 4 wives?  

The big difference between Palestinians and Jews is that to Jews, a life lost is like losing a world.  Families and the Israeli government go to great lengths to preserve their lives, like providing bomb shelters for all.  The IDF has standards so that they do not waste innocent lives.    The Palestinians, on the other hand, do things like put ammunition storage into schools, and shoot wildly at Israeli civilians.    They don't mind losing their lives and do a lot of suicide killings of Israelis.