A different point of view on the issue of Palestine that you may want to explore (sorry that it's long):
The "Palestinians" were called "Arabs" by everyone including themselves up until 1967. By calling themselves "Palestinians" they tried to make it look as if they are the original true inhabitants of Palestine.
Until 1917 Palestine was part of the Ottoman empire which ruled it for 400 years, and it was a forgotten and desolated place. The Ottomans counted about a quarter of a million people in all of Palestine in the begining of the 19th century.
During the 19th century Europeans started to pay more attention to Palestine with more and more western travellers visiting it and more and more churches, hospitals etc being built by Europeans such as Germans, French, Russians etc.
Most (if not all) of these western travellers to Palestine during the 19th century, before Zionism began describe a barren, desolate, mainly empty land. These were not Zionists but christian Europeans or Americans. A few examples:
The English cartographer Arthur Penrhyn Stanley was one of them and his description of the landscape of Judea for instance in 1881 was: ‘It is hardly an exaggeration to say that for miles and miles, there was no appearance of life or habitation.’
In 1857, British Counsel in Palestine James Finn wrote to the Earl of Clarendon: “The country is, (to) a considerable degree, empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population.”
The Arabs who lived in Palestine before the start of Zionism and later the British mandate were few in numbers and developed nothing in this land. They lived in primitive villages or towns. They were not referred to as "Palestinians" but as Arabs who happened to live in this Ottoman province.
During the British mandate the number of Arabs in Palestine doubled as the land was being developed more and more by both the British and the Jews and many Arab from neighboring countries came to settle in it.
I saw for instance a film on Youtube about the Nakba and a an Arab man is interviewed there are someone who lived in Jaffa escaped to Lebanon during the 1948 war. the film portrayed Israel in a bad way and decsibed the Palestinians as innocent victims. But this man said that his father came to Jaffa originally from Lebanon, and that where he returned to in 1948. And many other "Palestinians" have the same kind of history.
The Arabs who fled Palestine in 1948 lived in a land which was already developed for decades by both the Zionists and the British and of course they were influenced by that development. Katamon was developed originally by Arab Christians only after the Jews and Europeans - like the German Templars developed their neighborhoods outside the walls of the old city. Katamon was a neighborhood of extravagant villas built by the richest Arab christians for themselves - in conditions which were very different from those of most of the poor Arab population who lived in Jerusalemthen - someting that is very common still today in the Arab world - the great disparity between the few rich and the poor masses. Since 1948 the neighborhood expanded and changed and developed a lot by Israel - infrastracture, roads, greenery, buildings etc.
But the level of development of the Arabs was very low before the Zionists and later the Brits came - as so many westerners report from the 19th century. Poor backward villages and towns. No developed education, medicine, communities. Can anyone bring one "Palesatinian" acheivement made by the Arabs in Palestine before Zionism and the British mandate started? And there was no separate national identity or culture or anything that made these people into a separate people or nation.
In recent years a whole new narrative was developed around Palestine and the Israeli Palestinian conflict. As if to correct the original narrative of the Zionists who came to a barren land and developed it from scratch. But the original narrative is much closer to the truth than the fictitious narrative that is so widespread today as if the Jews stole the land from its original lawful inhabitants - the "Palestinians".
I think one should go beyond words and narrative to history. Read about what Palestine truelly was in the 19th century - before Zioism began. What was here (or wasn't), who ruled this place, who and how many were the "Palestinians", where did they come from, how did they live here etc. etc.
Nowadays the Arabs ("Palestinians") take ownership of everything Israel is now ad everything the Israelis or the British developed here, every church or hospital built by Europeans in the 19th century or early 20th century etc.
It seems to me that you are pretty fixed on the new narrative that was developed around Palestine but maybe you'll open your mind to a different angle and information about this place. Historic truth is an elusive thing but I do believe that it is an objective thing and not just a matter of a view point. Both sides in this conflict did some bad things and it's easy to take the bad things that the Zionists did and portray it as the only truth. Part of the truth is not the whole truth, it's sometimes, as in this case, not even most of the truth.
Israel has changed a lot since 1948. Ironically the descendants of the people who built Israel are a minority in the Israeli society today. They were of the kind it seems your new friend's parents were - socialist, secular, idealistic people who came mainly from unsafe eastern or central Europe to a barren land and hoped to built here a homeland for the persecuted Jews. They weren't thinking of illegal settlements or chasing or killing Arabs and they didn't do these things. They legally bought the lands they settled on, lands that were ruled by the Ottomans and afterwards the British, and they were the ones who suffered constant attacks from the Arab side.
The masses of Jews from Arab countries who beside their positive contribution to this country also unfortunately introduced new levels of rudeness, loudness and agressiveness to the Israeli society, as well as the hardline religious Jews and settlers are not everthing Israel was and still is.
A different point of view on the issue of Palestine that you may want to explore (sorry that it's long):
ReplyDeleteThe "Palestinians" were called "Arabs" by everyone including themselves up until 1967. By calling themselves "Palestinians" they tried to make it look as if they are the original true inhabitants of Palestine.
Until 1917 Palestine was part of the Ottoman empire which ruled it for 400 years, and it was a forgotten and desolated place.
The Ottomans counted about a quarter of a million people in all of Palestine in the begining of the 19th century.
During the 19th century Europeans started to pay more attention to Palestine with more and more western travellers visiting it and more and more churches, hospitals etc being built by Europeans such as Germans, French, Russians etc.
Most (if not all) of these western travellers to Palestine during the 19th century, before Zionism began describe a barren, desolate, mainly empty land. These were not Zionists but christian Europeans or Americans.
A few examples:
The English cartographer Arthur Penrhyn Stanley was one of them and his description of the landscape of Judea for instance in 1881 was: ‘It is hardly an exaggeration to say that for miles and miles, there was no appearance of life or habitation.’
In 1857, British Counsel in Palestine James Finn wrote to the Earl of Clarendon: “The country is, (to) a considerable degree, empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population.”
There are on YouTube films made by the British film company Pathé. I saw one describing Palestine during Ottoman time and it was finished by the words : "The desolation which is now Palestine".
The Arabs who lived in Palestine before the start of Zionism and later the British mandate were few in numbers and developed nothing in this land. They lived in primitive villages or towns. They were not referred to as "Palestinians" but as Arabs who happened to live in this Ottoman province.
During the British mandate the number of Arabs in Palestine doubled as the land was being developed more and more by both the British and the Jews and many Arab from neighboring countries came to settle in it.
I saw for instance a film on Youtube about the Nakba and a an Arab man is interviewed there are someone who lived in Jaffa escaped to Lebanon during the 1948 war. the film portrayed Israel in a bad way and decsibed the Palestinians as innocent victims.
But this man said that his father came to Jaffa originally from Lebanon, and that where he returned to in 1948. And many other "Palestinians" have the same kind of history.
The Arabs who fled Palestine in 1948 lived in a land which was already developed for decades by both the Zionists and the British and of course they were influenced by that development. Katamon was developed originally by Arab Christians only after the Jews and Europeans - like the German Templars developed their neighborhoods outside the walls of the old city.
Katamon was a neighborhood of extravagant villas built by the richest Arab christians for themselves - in conditions which were very different from those of most of the poor Arab population who lived in Jerusalemthen - someting that is very common still today in the Arab world - the great disparity between the few rich and the poor masses.
Since 1948 the neighborhood expanded and changed and developed a lot by Israel - infrastracture, roads, greenery, buildings etc.
But the level of development of the Arabs was very low before the Zionists and later the Brits came - as so many westerners report from the 19th century.
Poor backward villages and towns. No developed education, medicine, communities. Can anyone bring one "Palesatinian" acheivement made by the Arabs in Palestine before Zionism and the British mandate started?
And there was no separate national identity or culture or anything that made these people into a separate people or nation.
In recent years a whole new narrative was developed around Palestine and the Israeli Palestinian conflict. As if to correct the original narrative of the Zionists who came to a barren land and developed it from scratch.
ReplyDeleteBut the original narrative is much closer to the truth than the fictitious narrative that is so widespread today as if the Jews stole the land from its original lawful inhabitants - the "Palestinians".
I think one should go beyond words and narrative to history. Read about what Palestine truelly was in the 19th century - before Zioism began. What was here (or wasn't), who ruled this place, who and how many were the "Palestinians", where did they come from, how did they live here etc. etc.
Nowadays the Arabs ("Palestinians") take ownership of everything Israel is now ad everything the Israelis or the British developed here, every church or hospital built by Europeans in the 19th century or early 20th century etc.
It seems to me that you are pretty fixed on the new narrative that was developed around Palestine but maybe you'll open your mind to a different angle and information about this place. Historic truth is an elusive thing but I do believe that it is an objective thing and not just a matter of a view point.
Both sides in this conflict did some bad things and it's easy to take the bad things that the Zionists did and portray it as the only truth. Part of the truth is not the whole truth, it's sometimes, as in this case, not even most of the truth.
Israel has changed a lot since 1948. Ironically the descendants of the people who built Israel are a minority in the Israeli society today. They were of the kind
it seems your new friend's parents were - socialist, secular, idealistic people who came mainly from unsafe eastern or central Europe to a barren land and hoped to built here a homeland for the persecuted Jews.
They weren't thinking of illegal settlements or chasing or killing Arabs and they didn't do these things. They legally bought the lands they settled on, lands that were ruled by the Ottomans and afterwards the British, and they were the ones who suffered constant attacks from the Arab side.
The masses of Jews from Arab countries who beside their positive contribution to this country also unfortunately introduced new levels of rudeness, loudness and agressiveness to the Israeli society, as well as the hardline religious Jews and settlers are not everthing Israel was and still is.