Nadene Goldfoot
The Palestinians of Gaza and the world population have lost sight of the history of who they are and how they came to be living in Gaza. Let me enlighten readers. The land is warmer but lovely along the Mediterranean Sea, like Seaside in Oregon but a lot more crowded today. Muslims here allow a man 4 wives and they have had many children. Through the years, it's become very crowded.
Israelis also live in crowded areas. Most Israelis also live in apartment buildings that are quite high. The land they live in is 10% of what was originally promised, as most of it went to the West Bank and a good strip went to Gaza.
This is the ancient land where Philistines lived and founded Gaza city, Ascalon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath, a fighting people by reputation. They were there during Israel's period of the Judges-before having a king. I'm going back almost 4,000 years ago. These were the enemies of King David and have been replaced by another people similar in reputation, but are not of the same line. They were named by the Romans and used that name for the land-Palestine in 135 CE. During the attacks happening during King Saul and King David, others attacking them were either obliterated or assimilated by the Israelites. That includes the Canaanites, Horites, Hittites, and Arameans, some Sidonians. Only the Hebrews have survived the centuries who are today's Jews; mainly of the tribe of Judah, with some of Benjamin and Simeon.
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Jews entered the land from Egypt, led by a former Prince of Egypt, Moses who led some 600,000 slaves to land they had once lived in 400 years previously before becoming slaves of Egypt. They lived there for 3,000 years with their history recorded in the Bible, "The Torah" which is part of the Old Testament as the world calls it, the Tanakh in Hebrew.
During last 400 years, the land was held by the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). During that period, Russia held pogroms against Jews, attacks on their villages called Shtetles. It was not safe for Jews. It was also a time that people were immigrating to the USA. In 1880, a large contingent of Jews made Aliyah (immigrated and settled) to Palestine and were able to live there. About 5 aliyote occurred throughout the years of Jews moving to Palestine, their ancient homeland, the place Jews were told to live in according to the Bible, and needing a place where they felt safer, leaving anti-Semitism. Some Jews had found a haven in nearby Middle East Communities and found themselves treated a 2nd class people, Dhimmis, who were not free but under many rules to distinguish themselves as Jews, how high their buildings were allowed to be, etc, etc. But the pogroms were rarer than in eastern Europe but did occur. Western trends crept into the Middle East.
Palestine always had Jews living there since Old Testament days, becoming Palestine instead of Israel in 135 CE by the Romans. They lived throughout the land, not a large number, but were there. Ever since 70 CE when the Romans burned down Jerusalem, there had been threats against Jews who tried to return. The city of Safed where I lived on top of a mountain, moving there in 1980, was one of the places with a long Jewish history .
Mark Twain, American writer, took a trip during that period to Palestine, an excursion to the Holy land, Egypt from Brooklyn, New York on February 1, 1867 etc, and his book, "The Innocents Abroad", vetted the fact that there were very few Arabs in the Holy Land. They came following the Aliyote of the Jews, hoping for jobs, as the countries they came from had little work or way they could make a living.
Joan Peters nee Friedman (1936-2015) , a journalist, did her own investigative work, feeling sympathy for the Palestinians, and what she uncovered put her in the camp of the Jews who deserved to live in their ancient homeland. Her book, From Time Immemorial, that tells the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine" was praised by our American president and others. Jewish PhDs who hadn't done any work and had sided with Palestinians were poor examples of Jews. They were jealous and have since then panned her work, which she has listed at the end of the book all the references she used; I have her book, now falling apart from over-use, and am in awe of her determination to get at the truth. It should be read by anyone thinking that Israel is Palestinian land. They don't know what they are talking about.
Jews helped to win WWI. So did Arabs. They were both promised help from England, who held a 30 year mandate on the land, who were the responsible party, the police of the land after all the meetings. It was up in June 1948. They were told by Prime Minister Balfour that they would have their Jewish Homeland and then broke that promise as they quickly remembered their other promise to Arabs and gave them 80% of the promised land. They were down to 20% and accepted the shortened deal. Then the next thing they knew was 10% of that was taken away and given to the Arabs again, leaving them 10% of their own promised land they had worked so hard to gain back, a land empty, swampy, full of mosquitoes or sand; mostly desert land left for them that the Arabs didn't even want.
Emir Feisal met with Chaim Weizmann in the 1920s ready to accept Jews in Palestine, hoping they'd help and teach his Arab population life-skills; but then the Brits had selected Amin al-Husseini to be the Sherif of Jerusalem and it went to his head, afraid of losing this title, he organized attacks against the Jews. He was so skillful that Feisal changed his position being friendly with Jews. Husseini was everything; the Grand Mufti, and was holding more power.
Tel Aviv was founded in 1909. Arabs were workers then. Haifa came about at the same time. As it developed, the Brits, holding all the cards now, wound up letting Arabs in the country and kept the majority of Jews out as they neared 1939 and the power of the Nazis. Ships of escaping Jews from Germany were turned away to meet their deaths. Even the USA in 1924 now waved rules limiting Jews into the USA with a long list of details needed before it happened. Our Uncle from Germany made it out on the last ship in May 1939 (Germany went into Poland in June 1939) but the rule was he had to have an American spokesman take all financial responsibility which our family great uncle did. One was saved that way, the son of a family that died in the gas chambers who was all they could get out. Even that was most expensive and almost impossible for them to finalize to get a ticket out.
May 14, 1948 and 5 minutes after declaring their state, Israel was being attacked-by Husseini's forces, by neighboring counties, actually starting 29 November 1947. This was Israel's War of Independence. Armistice agreements were finally signed in 1949.
The Arabs took a break, then attacked again 29 October to 5 November 1956 in what is called the Sinai War. Another break was taken by the Arabs who got all their neighbors and friends to fight with them from 5th to 11th June 1967 in what we call The Six-Day War which was very decisive, when Israel won so miraculously after being attacked by so many and winning back land from Jordan that had originally was meant for Israel.
Arabs lost this war they thought would be so easy with so many, and they were so angry that they went to Africa to a town called Khartoum in Sudan, and had a joint meeting where they decided they were not finished; and would say no no no to all things meaning peace with the Jews. They would drive them into the sea and take the land.
Therefore, on 6 October, 1973, they attacked again on Israel's most holy day of the year, Yom Kippur, when the whole nation was to be in synagogues in a state of fasting for 25 hours, asking G-d for forgiveness for any sin committed during the year, and promising better from themselves for the next year, hoping to be including in the Book of Life.
After their last try of war of 73, Intifadas began, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, beginning in 1987.
I never understood their complaint of occupation. Jews were not living there but did hold some control that was their protection against being wiped out. The West Bank and Gaza were hotbeds of terror, attacking Israel and needed to be under watch. Israel has been providing all their needs, electricity for one-that they never pay for. Mostly, they have been dependent on the monetary gifts from other Muslim countries.
False charges of Israeli atrocities and instigation from the mosques played an important role in starting the intifada. On December 6, 1987, an Israeli was stabbed to death while shopping in . One day later, four residents of the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza were killed in a traffic accident. Rumors that the four had been killed by Israelis as a deliberate act of revenge began to spread among the Palestinians. Mass rioting broke out in Jabalya on the morning of December 9, in which a 17-year-old youth was killed by an Israeli soldier after throwing a Molotov cocktail at an army patrol. This soon sparked a wave of unrest that engulfed the , and . Twenty years after the 1967 war, Palestinians had launched their first intifada, or uprising. It began in December 1987 after a traffic accident in which what they were only told about was that an Israeli truck crashed into a vehicle carrying Palestinian workers in Gaza's Jabalya refugee camp, killing four. Stone-throwing protests, strikes and shutdowns followed.
Since then, there have been many more incidents, intifadas, boggling my mind, but I lived in Safed from June 1980 to the end of 1985 with my husband. We were English teachers; I in the junior high school and he in high school. We talked the talk and walked the walk having our purse and pockets checked before entering any building, even school, going through bomb shelter drills, living during a window of safety, luckily, that I wrote about.
Now, to read about this attack that started in Israel on October 7th 2023 with almost 3,000 Israelis slaughtered, not even attacked by an army, is as shocking to us as it was to Israelis. It is something no civilized civilization would have done, even Russia with their attacks on Ukraine-which is presided over by a Jewish president, by the way, that is not the reason for their attacking. But the attack on Israel was for that reason; Israel was created for Jews needing a country that would take them in by a people who have been wandering for 3,000 years on many levels. They needed their own country and got it when it was being doled out to those needing it at the end of WWI through the League of Nations and again with UN at end of WWII.
Palestinians have lived there because Jews at the time begged them not to run and not to listen to their leaders who wanted them to leave as the Arabs were going to take over all the land, homes, etc, and promised the Palestinians they could return and live in the Jewish homes during the fight in 1948. They were all too greedy and looked forward to living in the Jewish homes.
The movie, CAST A GIANT SHADOW, from 1966 with Kirk Douglas dramatizes Israel's heroic 1947-48 struggle for independence. It's both a realistic war story and a passionate romance, of course with the female stars, Angie Dickinson and Senta Berger, also starring Yul Brynner, John Wayne and Frank Sinatra in supporting roles. I bought it as a DVD- history made to watch for 2 hours 18 minutes. It cost me $13.49. Hope you can find it.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Battleground-fact and fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz ($14.98)
Myths and Facts, a concise record of the Arab-Israeli Conflict by PhDs Mitchell G. Bard and Joel Himelfarb. ($5.95 in my day) by Near East Report's.
Facts about Israel, 1973 by Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
Update:11/14/23 https://www.albert-tours-israel.com/single-post/history-of-gaza
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/first-intifada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Peters
Book: Letters From Israel by Nadene Goldfoot
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