There is no end in sight of the Middle East conflict. Whose fault is it? The reason seems to be that the Israeli establishment is not in touch with their roots.
If they had studied Talmud, they would come across a law that says: If two people find a piece of fabric and both claim the entire piece, then the piece gets divided between them. If, however, one of them only claims a half, then only this half is a source of a dispute, and it gets divided. So the person who claims the whole thing will get three quarters of it, while the one who claims the half, will get a quarter of the fabric.
What does it have to do with the Middle East conflict?
Once upon a time, the Middle East was under the rule of Ottoman Empire. At that time, Palestine was a dreaded, desolate land. Turks used it as a place of exile and never contemplated making it into a state. This is the way the American writer Mark Twain described what he saw in the 1880s, when he visited the place that is the site of such bloodshed today:
"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren... The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent... It is a hopeless dreary heartbroken land... Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes... Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies... Nazareth is forlorn;... Jericho... accursed... Jerusalem... a pauper village... Palestine is desolate... A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human being on the whole route... Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country." (Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad or the New Pilgrim's Progress - Volume II, p.216-359 (Harper and Brothers, 1922))
Only Jews longed for this desolated land, and, whenever allowed, trickled back into it.
How Did Arabs Populate Israel in Such a Great Numbers?
In 1840, the Turks officially settled 46,000 foreigners to the Land of Israel to farm great tracts and strip the forests for lumber. In Constantinople, the Ottoman Sultan decreed that Jews were forbidden to enter Israel and those already there were prevented from purchasing state land - 85 % of the total area of Israel. During the next 80 years, the Turks brought in 440,000 Arabs to populate the area for imperialist purposes.
In 1920, the British obtained Israel from the defeated Turks, acting as trustees under the League of Nations Mandate. In 1934, 36,000 Syrians were admitted without passports. Secret British documents, recently declassified, acknowledge masses of Arabs were illegally imported. Yet the White Paper of 1939 severely restricted the immigration of Jews, because "the land couldn't absorb them." From 1924 to 1947, the British secretly brought in 440,000 Arabs from Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Arabia in trains, trucks and on foot to ensure an Arab majority when the Mandate expired. According to the CIA, the British Secret Services smuggled in terrorists, weapons, and agent provocateurs to incite and murder Jews in an attempt to destabilize, discredit and discourage the Zionist establishment.
During the Holocaust, the British army in Israel fired on ships bringing Jews from Europe, and sent them back to the Nazi inferno. At the same time the British secretly smuggled in 200,000 Arabs. The land cleared by pioneers for their brethren in Europe was stolen by these illegal Arab "immigrants." Of the 1,303,000 Arabs living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza in 1947, a total of 1,000,000 were either illegally brought in or born to those brought in, after the start of Zionist development in 1882. And the majority of the remaining 300,000 were descendants of the Arabs who had been settled by the Turks.
In 1948, the UN classified as "refugees" Arabs who had lived in Israel for two years. Arabs came to Israel either to make a buck or as part of British policy to stop the establishment of the Jewish state. They were not an indigenous population (from Nefesh magazine).
How Israeli Borders Were Established?
After World War I, the Ottoman Empire was defeated, and Britain promised to create a Palestinian State for the Jews, for which they got a mandate. Using Biblical boundaries of the twelve Jewish tribes, they drew a map of Palestine.
Then, Arabs rioted and the British rewarded them with the larger portion of the Land. From the onset, 76% percent of the territory was carved out to create Jordan. Then the Jews were allowed to declare the State of Israel only on the part of the territory remaining. When faced with direct aggression, Jews retaliated and got some of the Land back, but in the aftermath they still submitted to Western pressure.
Today, nobody expects the Arabs to be conscious of history and sensitive to Jewish claims, and so they keep demanding the "whole fabric". When Arabs speak to Western audiences, they cry that they only want 24% of the Land, slyly meaning that 76% is already theirs. And the PLO emblem includes the whole of present-day Israel. Their goal is to divide Israel into infinity, G-d forbid, and then to merge their share with Jordan.
[Part 1 of 2]
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Tamara Tatarinov-Levin writes from Framingham, Massachusetts.
If they had studied Talmud, they would come across a law that says: If two people find a piece of fabric and both claim the entire piece, then the piece gets divided between them. If, however, one of them only claims a half, then only this half is a source of a dispute, and it gets divided. So the person who claims the whole thing will get three quarters of it, while the one who claims the half, will get a quarter of the fabric.
What does it have to do with the Middle East conflict?
Once upon a time, the Middle East was under the rule of Ottoman Empire. At that time, Palestine was a dreaded, desolate land. Turks used it as a place of exile and never contemplated making it into a state. This is the way the American writer Mark Twain described what he saw in the 1880s, when he visited the place that is the site of such bloodshed today:
"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren... The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent... It is a hopeless dreary heartbroken land... Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes... Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies... Nazareth is forlorn;... Jericho... accursed... Jerusalem... a pauper village... Palestine is desolate... A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human being on the whole route... Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country." (Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad or the New Pilgrim's Progress - Volume II, p.216-359 (Harper and Brothers, 1922))
Only Jews longed for this desolated land, and, whenever allowed, trickled back into it.
How Did Arabs Populate Israel in Such a Great Numbers?
In 1840, the Turks officially settled 46,000 foreigners to the Land of Israel to farm great tracts and strip the forests for lumber. In Constantinople, the Ottoman Sultan decreed that Jews were forbidden to enter Israel and those already there were prevented from purchasing state land - 85 % of the total area of Israel. During the next 80 years, the Turks brought in 440,000 Arabs to populate the area for imperialist purposes.
In 1920, the British obtained Israel from the defeated Turks, acting as trustees under the League of Nations Mandate. In 1934, 36,000 Syrians were admitted without passports. Secret British documents, recently declassified, acknowledge masses of Arabs were illegally imported. Yet the White Paper of 1939 severely restricted the immigration of Jews, because "the land couldn't absorb them." From 1924 to 1947, the British secretly brought in 440,000 Arabs from Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Arabia in trains, trucks and on foot to ensure an Arab majority when the Mandate expired. According to the CIA, the British Secret Services smuggled in terrorists, weapons, and agent provocateurs to incite and murder Jews in an attempt to destabilize, discredit and discourage the Zionist establishment.
During the Holocaust, the British army in Israel fired on ships bringing Jews from Europe, and sent them back to the Nazi inferno. At the same time the British secretly smuggled in 200,000 Arabs. The land cleared by pioneers for their brethren in Europe was stolen by these illegal Arab "immigrants." Of the 1,303,000 Arabs living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza in 1947, a total of 1,000,000 were either illegally brought in or born to those brought in, after the start of Zionist development in 1882. And the majority of the remaining 300,000 were descendants of the Arabs who had been settled by the Turks.
In 1948, the UN classified as "refugees" Arabs who had lived in Israel for two years. Arabs came to Israel either to make a buck or as part of British policy to stop the establishment of the Jewish state. They were not an indigenous population (from Nefesh magazine).
How Israeli Borders Were Established?
After World War I, the Ottoman Empire was defeated, and Britain promised to create a Palestinian State for the Jews, for which they got a mandate. Using Biblical boundaries of the twelve Jewish tribes, they drew a map of Palestine.
Then, Arabs rioted and the British rewarded them with the larger portion of the Land. From the onset, 76% percent of the territory was carved out to create Jordan. Then the Jews were allowed to declare the State of Israel only on the part of the territory remaining. When faced with direct aggression, Jews retaliated and got some of the Land back, but in the aftermath they still submitted to Western pressure.
Today, nobody expects the Arabs to be conscious of history and sensitive to Jewish claims, and so they keep demanding the "whole fabric". When Arabs speak to Western audiences, they cry that they only want 24% of the Land, slyly meaning that 76% is already theirs. And the PLO emblem includes the whole of present-day Israel. Their goal is to divide Israel into infinity, G-d forbid, and then to merge their share with Jordan.
[Part 1 of 2]
--------------------------------------------------------
Tamara Tatarinov-Levin writes from Framingham, Massachusetts.