Why Arabs fail to understand the unique and special connection Jews have to 'Eretz Yisrael'? Post Your Comment (4 comments)

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Posted on August 2, 2001

Many Christian and Muslim Arabs find it difficult to understand the "unique and special connection" many Jews claim to have for Palestine for the following reasons:

• Since Zionism, as an ideology, evolved in response to the rise of European nationalism and anti-Semitism in the late 19th century, specially in Tsarist Russian ruled Poland, Latvia, and Ukraine, and in France during the Dreyfus affair, the question which begs to be asked is:
  
  Is there a connection between Tsarist Russia's pogroms (or the Nazi holocaust) and the "unique and special connection" many Jews claim to have to "Eretz Yisrael"?
  
• For the moment, let's assume that this "unique and special connection" has always existed amongst Jews, then:
  
  Where were the Jews and the Zionists when their "Eretz Yisrael" was raped and pillaged by the Christian Crusaders? It should be noted that hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Arabs died while cleansing "Eretz Yisrael" from the Crusaders between 11th-13th centuries.
  Is it possible that many Muslims and Arabs had a kind of a "unique and special connection" to "Eretz Yisrael" as well?
  
• Since "Eretz Yisrael" historically spanned the borders of the occupied West Bank (inclusive of occupied East Jerusalem), western parts of Jordan, the occupied Golan Heights, the Sinai peninsula, southern Lebanon, and southern Syria (click here for a map), does that imply that:
  
  Israel must never relinquish "Jewish sovereignty" over the occupied West Bank, the occupied Golan Heights, and the liberated southern Lebanon?
  Israel must reoccupy and reinvade southern Lebanon?
  Israel eventually must nullify the peace treaties it has signed with Egypt and Jordan since "Eretz Yisrael's" borders span some of Egypt's and Jordan's borders?
  
• Let's assume that the above arguments are nonsense to the average Jew or Zionist, then:
  
  What makes this "unique and special connection" different from the one that German, Polish, Greek, Italian, Egyptian, ... etc. Christians have towards Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem? Ironically, once upon a time the Catholic Christians felt a similar "unique and special connection" to "Eretz Yisrael", and we all know how that turned out to be!
  Why must this "unique and special connection" imply Palestinian dispossession?
  Why cannot this "unique and especial connection" continue to flourish without "transferring" the Palestinian people out of their homes, farms, and business?
  Why Christians' "unique and special connections" to "Eretz Yisrael" flourished without Palestinians being "transferred" or dispossessed?
  
  
• Again, assuming that the above arguments are still nonsense to the average Jew or Zionist, then:
  
  Would you advocate perpetrating war crimes (such as massive ethnic cleansing, dispossession, or even committing genocide) against non-Jews to make "Eretz Yisrael" a country under "Jewish control"?
  In Biblical times, Israelites' conquest of Jericho contained many documented cases of mass killings and looting, could such Biblical events be used as a precedent to "redeem Eretz Yisrael" from the "gentiles" or Golems?
  How do you know where, when, and how to draw the line?
  
• We hope you will excuse our sense of humor, but we feel it's important to ask the following questions:
  
  Does this "unique and special connection" transfer to other humans upon their conversion to Judaism?
  In other words, assuming that a million people convert to Judaism (which already occurred during the great Jewish Khazrian empire),
  Did these new converts magically overnight develop a "unique and special connection" to "Eretz Yisrael"? If your answer is yes,
  Could Palestinians reclaim their looted homes if they all made a mass conversion to Judaism?
  Are you aware that it's against the Israeli Law to pretend to be Jewish? This is actually punishable with up to a year's imprisonment, and many such cases have been successfully prosecuted in the "only democracy in the Middle East". (Fateful Triangle, p. 158)

There is no question of the fact that many Jews do feel a "unique and special connection" toward "Eretz Yisrael", which we neither seek to diminish nor nullify. However, to claim that this "connection" is stronger, different, or even more divine than the way Muslims and Christians feel toward Palestine, is nothing but a racist claim. This fact was very well articulated by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the father of the Israeli political Right, in 1923. He wrote:

"They [Palestinians] look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true favor that Aztecs looked upon Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie. Palestine will remain for the Palestinians not a borderland, but their birthplace, the center and basis of their own national existence." (Righteous Victims p. 36)

The hard truth that many Jews and Zionists refuse to contemplate is that Zionism evolved due to European anti-Semitism, and it had little to do with the Biblical "connection" many Jews claim to have to Palestine. As with its predecessor, the Christian Crusade, the Old Testament is being used to confuse and distract attention from the core issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The core issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are the ethnic cleansing and dispossession of the Palestinian people for the past five decades, and it should be emphasized that the conflict would have been at the same level of intensity, even if both warring parties had been Muslims, Christians, or even Jewish.

It's a tragedy that many Palestinians and Arabs respond to this form of "Jewish racism" with their version of Islamic or Palestinian Racism in return. It's even more tragic that often the words of God are used by many Jews, Christians, and Muslims to justify perpetrating war crimes against others, God is innocent from such war crimes.

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