Nadene Goldfoot
After watching the presentation, my first comment is that this was presented as a concluding side of a debate as a case for the Palestinian state. The feeling given was that the Jews, Christians and Muslims all had equal and fair reasons for wanting Jerusalem and the state of Israel. What I noticed, sadly, is that the Palestinians have been in complete denial of the facts about the history of Israel which includes Jerusalem. To Jews, there is no comparison to the value that Jerusalem has by the Jews or the length of time spent living there.
Yes, Joshua had to fight when he arrived with Moses and the Exodus, given no choice a people attacked them first. There are no more ancient people of that period, as all have intermarried with Israelites in the end and have disappeared as any people.
The remarks I noted at the beginning was that the Palestinians feel that Israel was the great disaster in their lives. It was noted that for the past 3,000 years, Jerusalem endured 6 conflicts over this one city. Which ones they spoke of were never mentioned. I count: 1947-1949 the War of Independence, 1956- The Sinai War, 1967-The Six Day War, 1973-The Yom Kippur War, and then smaller wars since then. I was there in 1982 when Israel went into Lebanon.
The comment that the Arabs had been on the land for 2,000 years and then suddenly the Europeans came was their argument for being native to the land which was a fallacy. The Palestinians are Arabs but not a people. They have come to Israel recently around 1885 from the surrounding areas seeking jobs from the also newly arrived Jews who were building towns and cities. There had been other Arabs previously, since the land had been in the Ottoman Empire hands, the Turks for the past 400 years, and there were Bedouins who wandered through all the lands on camels or donkeys. What Arabs were there were farmers who upon seeing their real-estate of value to the Jews, upped the prices and made deals, leaving for greener pastures of Paris or Lebanon. They were having a hard time paying taxes to the Ottomans. I cite the book by Joan Peters as evidence of this fact, FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL, who actually did the research on this.
There were other people on the land besides the Jews before the Ottomans took it over. Usually they integrated or married into the Jewish people, and as a people vanished that way. It is the Jews who may be carrying some of their genes. The Jews have been on the land since Moses led them to Canaan which would be by 1271 BCE when he died outside the perimeter. There have always been Jews living on the land of Eretz Yisrael.
Incidentally, a fairly recent fact has been that the Druze are the closest in DNA to Jews, but now scientists have also included the Palestinians as well. So Abraham has left his evidence of his descendants after all. We've always said in the Bible, written by Moses, that Abraham had Ishmael by an Egyptian wife, Hagar.
Palestinian Arabs have been duped about their history. CNN told of how some carry the keys to their homes before they were ousted. I imagine Jews had done the same thing when the Romans occupied Israel and then burnt Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE. But the Palestinian Arabs left for different reasons than that. What happened was that the Arabs were attacking the Jews in the War of Independence and the Arab leaders told them to leave as they were about to attack, and when they finished they could take over the homes of the Jews who they would kill. It didn't turn out that way. When then sought out a place to stay, they were led to refugee camps, and have stayed there ever since; raised through 3 generations in such places, all because they wouldn't stay and live in peace with the Jews and coveted their homes, ready to see them killed.
This wasn't the plan of our Jewish leaders. They had visions of everyone living together on the land in peace. They didn't know the minds of the Arab leaders other than Emir Faisal, who as an educated man. Faisal saw the Jews' return as helpful for his unskilled and uneducated Arab people. He hoped they would learn these things from the Jews. Faisal wound up being the King of Syria and the King of Iraq. The Sherif of Jerusalem aka Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of the Arabs, led attacks on Jews in 1929, etc. He was a big fish in a little pond. The Brit who had appointed him happened to be a Jew. He turned against the people that had fed him.
Abdullah was mentioned, who was the son of Hussein of Mecca,king of Hejaz. He was awarded the land by the Brits; he didn't have to fight the Jews for it as was intimated. The Brits gave him 80% of the land they had promised to the Jews first. Hussein, king of Jordan was his grandson.
Nasser was spoken of as the hero of the Arab people and PM Eshkol as having no background. The Jews did have Moshe Dayan, though, who saved the day for Israel. I regret I had forgotten to include him in my report. CNN spoke of atrocities done on each side. I know that women soldiers carried something like cyanide in their pocket just in case they were captured for the atrocities by the Palestinians were deemed to be pretty awful. I wouldn't bet that Israel practiced any atrocities. They live by a better code of ethics. Israel's army is known for fair treatment. However, a people doing certain things expect their enemy to do the same.
The comment of Palestinian Arabs were defenseless and their citizens were killed is questionable. When the Brits left, they did not give the Jews any guns to defend themselves with while the Arabs were known to be rioting against them. At the same time, the Brits had been letting in Arab immigrants but keeping out the Jews escaping the Nazis. The battle for Jerusalem had begun.
The UN was mentioned, wanting a cool off period as they saw that Israel had already won the battle. The Arabs seemed to angrily note that the USA backed Israel with money and weapons while the Soviet Union had been backing the Arabs. The Palestinians have been pawns in the great chess game that Arab leaders have been playing.
The Palestinians moan that Israel as cost them their freedom. Arabs in Israel have more freedom than others in the Middle East. Those that stayed and didn't leave are full citizens, even able to serve in the Knesset, beauty pageants, etc. They complain that they have suffered the most. I ask how? What have they done to be good citizens? Why have their sons been throwing stones or knifing Jews on the Temple Mount? They complain that they have been made into refugees. That's not true. They chose that path themselves. Their pride may be hurt. They have been in denial for a very long time and feed these same stories to their own children. They call their situation a humanitarian crisis. They call Jews the occupiers, and it's all rubbish. It's all in the history books as to how the Jews finally, after 3,000 years of waiting, gained their country back again. They met with the allies before WWI was over and presented their case of needing their country, and after losing about 90% of what was promised, did gain a tiny portion of their original land, and they named it Israel.
Palestinians saw a bulldozer come in and refer to it as ethnic cleansing. What they saw was that the Palestinians themselves had built shacks, or homes on land not theirs when in the hands of the Jordanians and when the Jews won a very horrible battle in 1967, probably used the bulldozer to clear the area that should not have been there in the first place. It's also been used as punishment for attacks on Jews in lieu of going to prison. Jews are the last people on earth to practice ethnic cleansing. We've had enough of that practiced on ourselves.
One great comment from my son was that he saw the greatness and the miracle that Israel managed to win a battle caused by Egypt, Syria, Jordan. Other Arabs from surrounding countries also came to lend a hand against Israel. Nasser had moved 100,000 men and 1,100 tanks into the Sinai while the other Arab states rapidly made their preparations and coordinated their moves for a unified attack on Israel, including an agreement between Nasser and King Hussein of Jordan. He did notice the little innuendos that I mentioned with the aim of building up the Palestinian case for a state.
I'm enjoying your blog as an American half-Jew with a love for Israel and genealogy and teaching. The article on Lincoln was fascinating. Point of correction, though...Israelites (not just the descendants of Judah a.k.a. Jews, but descendants of all 12 tribes) did indeed practice ethnic cleansing when commanded by God. For example, the Amalakites have no descendants living, and the inhabitants of Ai, and many other Canaanite tribes were completely wiped out by Joshua and the sons of Israel (see the Book of Jasher). The slip-up with the Gibeonites does infer a reluctance to do wholesale ethnic cleansing, though. Probably only their fear of the Lord and a righteous anger at the foul practices of the Canaanites and Rephaim made them steel their spines to do the awful work. Wish I could visit Israel and see the ancient sites and our family's Schalit footprint left in Rishon LeTzion myself but that doesn't look likely for a while. Warm wishes from the States.
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