That Israel and Zionist hardliners should be opposing BDS by an ugly smear campaign exposes the illegitimacy of its policies and practices.
There are many reasons to consider the Palestinian struggle for self-determination a lost cause. Israel exerts unchallenged paramilitary control over the Palestinian people, a political reality accentuated periodically by brutal attacks on Gaza causing massive civilian casualties and societal dislocation. Organized Palestinian armed resistance has all but disappeared, limiting anti-Israeli violence to the desperation of individual Palestinians acting on their own and risking near certain death by striking spontaneously with primitive knives at Israelis encountered on the street, especially those thought to be settlers.
Furthermore, the current internal dialogue in Israel is disinclined to view ‘peace’ as either a goal or prospect. This dialogue is increasingly limited to whether it seems better for Israel at this time to proclaim a one-state solution that purports to put the conflict to an end or goes on living with the violent uncertainties of a status quo that hovers uncomfortably between the realities of ‘annexation’ and the challenges of ‘resistance.’ Choosing this latter course means hardening the apartheid features of the occupation regime established in 1967. It has long had the appearance of a quasi-permanent arrangement that is constantly being altered to accommodate further extensions of the de facto annexations taking place within the Palestinian territorial remnant that since the occupation commenced was never more than 22% of British-administered Palestine. It is no secret that the unlawful Israeli settlement archipelago is constantly expanding and Jerusalem is becoming more Judaized to solidify on the ground Israel’s claim of undivided control over the entire city.
Israel feels decreasing pressure—really no pressure at all aside from the ticking bomb of demographics—to pretend in public that it is receptive to a negotiated peace that leads to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The regional turbulence in the Middle East is also helpful to Israel as it shifts global attention temporarily away from the Palestinian plight, giving attention instead to ISIS, Syria, and waves of immigrants threatening the cohesion of the European Union, and the centrist politics of its members. This gives Israel almost a free pass and Palestinian grievances have become for now a barely visible blip on the radar screens of public opinion.
Recent regional diplomacy strengthens Israeli security. Both Saudi Arabia and Turkey seek normalized relationships with Israel, Egypt is again supportive of Israeli interests, and the rest of the region is preoccupied with internal strife and sectarian struggles. Even without the United States standing in the background giving unconditional security guarantees, ever larger aid packages, and serving as dutiful sentry in international institutions to block censure moves, Israel has never seemed as secure as it is now. The underlying question that will be answered in years to come is whether this impression of security is appearance or reality.
Yet even such a reassuring picture from Israel’s perspective, while accurate as far as it goes, creates misimpressions unless we consider some further elements. There exist a series of reasons for the Palestinians to believe that their struggle, however difficult, is not in vain. Although the French initiative to revive bilateral negotiations is unlikely to challenge effectively Israel’s unilateralism, it does suggest a possibly emerging European willingness to raise awkward questions about the continued viability of the United States claim to be exclusively entitled to act as the international intermediary of the conflict. The Oslo framework that has dominated international diplomacy since 1993 was fatally flawed from its inception by allowing the United States to play this brokering role despite its undisguised partisanship. How could the Palestinians ever be expected to entrust their future to such a skewed ‘peace process’ unless compelled to do so as a result of their weakness? And from such weakness and skewed diplomacy only fools and knaves would expect a sustainable peace based on the equality of the two peoples to follow.
This diplomacy was exposed for the charade it was, especially by the subversive impact of continuous Israeli unlawful settlement expansion that was dealt with by Washington with diminishing expressions of disapproval. And yet this diplomatic charade was allowed to go on because it seemed ‘the only game in town’ and it had the secondary political advantage of facilitating without endorsing Israel’s ambitions with respect to land-grabbing.
A question for the future is whether the French, or the Europeans, can at some point create a more balanced alternative diplomacy that serves both parties equally and conditions diplomatic engagement upon compliance with international law. Such a possibility seems at last to being tested, however tentatively and timidly, and even this modest challenge seems to be worrying Tel Aviv. The Netanyahu leadership is suddenly once more proposing yet another round of futile Oslo negotiations with the apparent sole purpose of undermining this French innovative gesture in case it unexpectedly gains political traction.
Realistically viewed, there is no present prospect of a political compromise achieving a sustainable peace. There needs first to be a change of leadership and political climate in Israel coupled with a more overall balance of international forces than has existed in the past. It is here we witness the beginnings of a new phase in the national struggle that the Palestinians have waged ever since the Nakba occurred in 1948. [Editor’s note: The Nakba, or “Catastrophe”, refers to the ethnic cleansing of most of the Arab population of Palestine.] Gone are the hopes of Palestinian rescue by the liberating armies of Arab neighbors or later, through organized Palestinian armed resistance. Gone also is the vain hope of a negotiated peace that delivers on the vain promise of an end to Israeli occupation and the birth of a genuinely sovereign Palestinian state within 1967 borders.
Palestinian ‘Statehood’
The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)/Palestinian Authority (PA)—(The PLO represents the entirety of the Palestinian people whereas the PA technically represents only those Palestinians living under occupation; as a practical matter the two entities overlap, even merge, as Mahmoud Abbas is both Chair of the PLO and President of the PA; it is possible that as some point these two Palestinian organizations will act and operate separately and even at odds with one another)—continue to represent the Palestinian people in global settings, including at the UN. Many Palestinians who are living under occupation and in exile consider the PA/PLO to be both ineffectual and compromised by corruption and quasi-collaboration with the occupiers. The PA/PLO on its side, after going sheepishly along with the Oslo process for more than twenty years, has begun finally to express its disillusionment by pursuing a more independent path to reach its goals. Instead of seeking Israel’s agreement to a Palestinian state accompanied by the withdrawal of its military and police forces, the PA/PLO is relying on its own version of diplomatic unilateralism to establish Palestinian statehood as well as trying to initiate judicial action to have Israeli policies and practices declared unlawful, even criminal.
In this regard, after being blocked by the United States in the Security Council, the PLO/PA obtained a favorable vote in the General Assembly according it in 2012 the status of ‘non-member statehood.’ The PA used this upgrading to adhere as a party to some widely ratified international treaties, to gain membership in UNESCO, and even to join the International Criminal Court. A year ago, the PLO/PA also gained the right to fly the Palestinian flag alongside the flags of UN members at its New York headquarters.
On one level such steps seem a bridge to nowhere as the daily rigors of the occupation have intensified, and this form of ‘statehood’ has brought the Palestinian people no behavioral relief. The PLO/PA has established ‘a ghost state’ with some of the formal trappings of international statehood, but none of the accompanying governance structures and expectations associated with genuine forms of national sovereignty. And yet, Israel backed by the United States, objects strenuously at every step taken along this path of virtuality, and is obviously infuriated, if not somewhat threatened, by PLO/PA initiatives based on international law. Israel’s concern is understandable as this PLO/PA approach amounts to a renunciation of ‘the Washington only’ door to a diplomatic solution, and formally puts Israel in the legally and morally awkward position of occupying indefinitely a state recognized by both the UN and some 130 governments around the world. In other words, as we are learning in the digital age, what is virtual can also become real.
Recourse to BDS
There are other potentially transformative developments complicating an overall assessment. Partially superseding earlier phases of the Palestinian struggle is a growing reliance on global civil society as the decisive site of engagement, and a complement to various ongoing forms of non-cooperation, defiance, and resistance on the ground. The policy focus of the global solidarity movement is upon various facets of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign (or simply BDS) that is gaining momentum around the world, and especially in the West, including on American university campuses and among mainstream churches. This recourse to militant nonviolent tactics has symbolic and substantive potential if the movement grows to alter public opinion throughout the world, including in Israel and the United States. In the end, as happened in South Africa, the Israel public and leadership just might be induced to recalculate their interests sufficiently to become open to a genuine political compromise that finally and equally safeguarded the security and rights of both peoples.
At this time, Israel is responding aggressively in a variety of rather high profile ways. Its official line is to say that its continued healthy rate of economic growth shows that BDS is having a negligible economic impact. Its governmental behavior suggests otherwise. Israeli think tanks and government officials now no longer hide their worries that BDS poses the greatest threat to Israel’s preferred future, including increasing isolation and perceptions of illegitimacy. As one sign of the priority accorded this struggle against BDS, the Israeli lobby in the United States has enlisted the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate has signed up to be a militant anti-BDS activist. At the heart of this anti-BDS campaign is what is being increasingly identified as ‘a new McCarthyism,’ the insidious effort to attach punitive consequences for those who are overtly pro-BDS.
Smearing BDS
In this vein, Israel has launched its own campaign to punish and intimidate those who support BDS, and even to criminalize advocacy. The Israeli lobby has been mobilized around this anti-BDS agenda in the United States, pushing state legislatures to pass laws that punish corporations that boycott Israel by denying them access to the domestic market or declare that BDS activism is a form of hate speech that qualifies as virulent anti-Semitism. Israel is even seeking common cause with liberal Zionist J Street in the US to work together against BDS, an NGO that it had previously derisively dismissed. Support for Israel from the Clinton presidential campaign includes two disgraceful features: an explicit commitment to do what it can to destroy BDS and a promise to upgrade the special relationship still further, openly overcoming the friction that was present during Obama presidency.
It is not new, of course, to brand critics of Israel as anti-Semites. Those of us who have tried to bear witness to Israeli wrongdoing and promote a just outcome have been attacked with increasing venom over the course of the last decade or so. The attack on pro-Palestinian members of the British Labour Party as anti-Semites is part of this Zionist pushback. What is particularly disturbing is that many Western political leaders echo these defamatory and inflammatory sentiments, including even the current UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who seems to be making some feeble amends as his term nears its end. Israel has no compunctions about attacking the UN as hostile and biased, while when convenient invoking its authority to discredit critics.
This inflation of the idea of anti-Semitism to cover activities protected by free speech and in the realm of responsible debate and citizen activism is on its own a regressive maneuver that deflects attention from the virulent history and outlook of those who hate Jews as individuals and support their persecution as a people. To attenuate the meaning of anti-Semitism in this way is to make the label much less ethically clear as it is improperly used to denigrate what should be permissible and even favored as well as what is properly condemned and socially rejected. To blur this boundary is to weaken the consensus on anti-Semitism that formed throughout the world after the Holacaust.
It is notable that this latest phase of Palestinian national struggle is mainly being waged nonviolently, and in a manner that accords with the best traditions of constitutional democracy. That Israel and Zionist hardliners should be opposing BDS by an ugly smear campaign exposes Israel’s vulnerability when it comes to the legitimacy of its policies and practices, and should give the Palestinians hope that their cause is far from lost.
A version of this article was published in Middle East Eye on June 26, 2016.
I have heard all the arguments on all sides. I would like to ask you how much energy these boycotters have put into the other ongoing 28 conflicts and border wars in the world today involving Muslim leaders and Muslim regimes?
If boycotting for human rights is the objective, then why is Israel singled out for boycott in a sea of Islamic Countries with abysmal human rights records? What does a balanced scale look like. If the West did not do business with dictators and totalitarian governments in the Middle East, then no one would ever get any business done in that geographical area.
I boycott Zionist Israeli products, peepsqueek, for the same reason that the world boycotted White Apartheid South African products (and sporting contacts), that is, because of the subjugation of an intrinsic population by foreign colonial occupiers.
What goes on in other countries is not a result of foreign occupation, in that aspect Zionist Israel is a throwback to Western Imperial Colonisation, that has been roundly rejected by those who were colonised.
Nine years of “Hamas” rockets has killed total of only 40 Zionist Israelis, compare that with nearly 3,600 Zionist Israeli motor accident fatalities during the same time.
Indeed, each year there are more Zionist Israelis murdered by Zionist Israelis than Hamas rockets have ever achieved; No death sentences for Zionist Israeli murderers, yet massive Zionist Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Ghetto, which in 2014 killed 448 innocent Palestinian children, injuring a further 2,503 Palestinian Children, according to United Nations figures.
As for “Palestinian Terrorism” I would be very interested if you could provide one single example of “Palestinian Terror” that was not first committed by European Zionist immigrants to Palestine or Zionist Israelis since May 15th 1947.
In exchange I shall provide you with a comprehensive list of “Zionist Terrorism” that Palestinians have yet to emulate.
I shall ignore your historically inaccurate claim of regular removal of Jews from the Levant, it is a Zionist distortion of the reality with no foundation, a myth that does great harm to the reputation of Judaism.
You make no mention of the fact that Netanyahu has repeatedly stated he will not talk with Hamas, an extraordinarily childish attitude that has no logic. Unless he intends to exterminate them all, he has no alternative, Hamas after all represents the intrinsic Palestinian population in Gaza, of who David Ben Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Zvi stated many times and wrote in their books “The Palestinians are the descendants of the inhabitants of the ancient land of Judea”.
Zionist European immigrants to Palestine cannot make that claim.
A religious belief is not a justification for Zionists of European origin to colonise, by force of arms, to conduct Genocidal Apartheid on an intrinsic population that mostly converted to the two later Semite religions of Christianity and Islam.
Zionist Israel brings shame upon Jews, the very least I can do is Boycott the products of a Racist State.
“I boycott Zionist Israeli products, peepsqueek, for the same reason that the world boycotted White Apartheid South African products……”
If you believe Israel to be a true apartheid state, please tell the readers: Which Israeli hospitals refuse to admit Israeli Arabs? Which Israeli restaurants refuse to serve Israeli Arabs? Which Israeli universities refuse to admit Israeli Arabs? Which Israeli buses refuse to board Israeli Arabs? In what elections are Israeli Arabs not allowed to vote? In what area of public life are Arab women not allowed to serve?
Besides the Jews in Israel, can you name another religious or ethnic minority in the Middle East that has the full right of self determination?
It is Israel’s neighbors that have institutional apartheid, sectarian apartheid, religious apartheid, gender apartheid, etc. Even apostates and gays are subject to harsh discrimination and worse. Singling out Israel for human rights abuse has to have a name.
Palestinians, peepsqueek, who remained in their homes when Zionist Israel expanded it`s borders are not equal citizens, instead they are “Residential Citizens” subject to over 60 Zionist Israeli laws that are applicable only to them.
Break any of those “Palestinian Only” laws and deportation is the likely result as has happened, even with Palestinian members of the Knesset.
Nor is possible for a Palestinian Residential Citizen to marry a Zionist Israeli Citizen, indeed that is referred to by Zionist Israeli lawmakers as a “Mixed Marriage”.
Palestinian Residential Citizens are not allowed to bring a future spouse into Zionist Israel, unlike Zionist Israelis who have no such restrictions.
Palestinian Israeli villages and schools receive 25% of Government funding as provided to Zionist Israeli villages and schools, despite paying the same rates of tax.
Blood donated by Palestinian Residential Citizens is required to be identified as such, a majority of Zionist Israelis refuse blood transfusions from Palestinian donors.
Besides Zionist Israel, can you name any other Middle Eastern Country that is a Foreign Colony created for European immigrants and maintained by force of arms?
Can you name me any other M.E. Country that has created 5 million UN Registered Palestinian refugees all of who are denied the right of return to their homeland, simply because they are Christian of Muslim?
Can you name any other M.E. country that is in violation of 77 United Nations resolutions? An all time record by miles
Can you name me any other M.E. Country that has received the protection of 31 USA vetoes of UN resolutions that would have authorised UN sanctions?
Can you name me any other M.E. Country that the CIA considers has between 200 and 400 Nuclear warheads.
You seem to select only part of the Balfour declaration ideals, which while expressed support for a Jewish Homeland; “It being clearly understood which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.
There are a growing number of people throughout the world who have learned the reality of the activities of Zionist Israelis and what happens elsewhere is simply irrelevant to what happens in Zionist israel.
You did not address anything I posted. Instead you attempt to quiz me on matters that contain a lot more facts and circumstances than I could fit on this page.
If you truly used a balanced scale, you would acknowledge the fact that the banner of Islam flies over 99.9% of the Middle East land mass, and all Middle East Countries, except Israel, are signatories to the Cairo Declaration:
Article 19: “There shall be NO crime or punishment EXCEPT as provided for in the Sharia.”
Article 24: “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Sharia.”
Article 25: “The Islamic Sharia is the ONLY source of reference for the explanation or clarification of ANY of the articles of this Declaration.”
That is why Israel must remain a Jewish State with Jewish laws. I am an atheist, but I get the whole concept. I don’t know any American Muslims that would leave a liberal democracy to go and bring their family to live under Islamic sharia and punishments.
I used exactly the same technique that you instigated peepsqeek!
In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson sent the King-Crane Commission to the Levant to explore the possibility of establishing a Jewish State in Palestine.
The findings were very clear; such a proposal was not practical, for two main reasons.
1. It would require the removal of the intrinsic population.
2. It could only be sustained by force of arms.
Today there are 5 million UN registered Palestinian refugees, all denied the right of return to their homeland, and no one could doubt Zionist Israel relies on force of arms.
A codicil letter accompanied the King-Crane report, It emphasised that were such a homeland created, it would demand a permanent USA Military, Financial and diplomatic support.
That also is the situation today.
The overwhelming majority of the worlds 15 million or so Jews, have neither the need nor the desire to live on stolen Palestinian land, be they supporters or critics of Zionist Israeli actions.
If you live or have visited Israel, you will have visited Dor, just north of Haifa, if not use “Google Maps” to find this quite beautiful coastal area.
Then “Google” Tantura and read for yourself.
Dor is what once was Tantura village, what happened there also happened to at least 500, but probably 600 Palestinian villages.
Don`t confuse Judaism with Zionism, peepsqueek, Judaism is a fine old and respected religion, the foundation of the two later Semite Religions of Christianity and Islam.
Zionism is a Nationalistic Racist Political Movement, no different from that of Nazi Germany, particularly when mirroring the Nazi Ayrian Supremacy ideals.
Jewish anti-Zionists have no hang ups at all at what religion others may follow, Zionists cannot accept the presence of non-Zionists living in the land they occupy.
P.S. there are some 30,000 Jews (and 300,000 Christians) living in Iran, an Iranian Jew is part of the Iranian UN. There are 15 Synagogues in Tehran alone, a thriving Jewish library and two popular Kosher restaurants.
Iranian Jews and Christians have their rights guaranteed in the 1978 Iranian constitution.
I mention Iran, as it seems in the US Iran is considered pure evil!
The Commission termed the territory it was investigating Syria, which covered the Arab territories of the defunct Ottoman Syria. Though it did not use the term Greater Syria, it looked at what would today encompass Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq.
Stop the BS! The first enduring Jewish agricultural settlement in the Modern Palestine was founded not by European refugees, but by a group of old-time families, leaving the overcrowded Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. According to the Turkish census of 1875, by that time Jews already constituted a majority of the population of Jerusalem and by 1905 comprised two-thirds of its citizens. The Encyclopedaedia Britanica of 1910 gives the population figure as 60,000, of who 40,000 were Jews.
In 1878 they found the village of Petah Tikva in the Sharon Palin, a village that was to become known as the “Mother of Jewish Settlements” in Palestine. Four years later a group of pioneer immigrants from Russia settled in Rishon le-Zion. Other villages followed in rapid succession. All land sales, under the Ottoman Empire, had to be approved by Islamic Courts. Non Muslims paid extra taxes therefore it was good business.
Most of the land purchases involved large tracts belonging to absentee owners. Virtually all of the the Jerzeel Valley, for example, had belonged to only two people in 1897, the eastern portion to the Turkish Sultan, and the Western part to a rich banker in Syria, Sursuk the Greek. Most of the land had not be cultivated previously and considered uncultivable, This is supported by the Peel Commission Report.
You are simply using Hasbara Archives, peepsqueek and moving the goalposts!
Such ignorance is appalling in the modern world of accessible information.
The concept of “Land ownership” under Islamic rule was unknown, no one owned land, ownership was restricted to what the land produced or was built on.
Under Ottoman Rule a “Land registry” was created to provide information on land use, in practice local administrators kept these records, which fell into the hands of British Administrators.
Post 1918,the Ottoman administration at every level was either exiled or jailed. leading to the erroneous myth of “Absent Landlords”, absent administrators would have been more accurate.
The British Administration assumed “ownership” of all land and had no problem with selling land to anyone who would buy it, Manna from Heaven for those European Zionist immigrants but a totally unknown concept to the intrinsic population.
Your comments betray a woeful knowledge of Middle Eastern attitudes or history, your ignorance bay provide you with bliss, but it is far from competent enough to enable you to engage in debate.
Sorry peepsqeek, you are so far out of your depth as to be beyond rescue.
“The concept of “Land ownership” under Islamic rule was unknown, no one owned land”
Ottoman land code of 1858 was the beginning of a new and systematic land reform programmer of the Ottoman Empire. It was developed by the Tanzimat council and it was created without any influence of European countries. It purely belongs to the ottoman state. It was developed on the basis of traditional land laws. The ottoman land code of 1858 made a compulsion for land owners to register their ownership. The reasons for registering land were to increase the revenue generated from the taxes and to make some control over the land in state of ottoman. Peasant did not find to register their lands due to following reasons.
Problems with ottoman land code of 1858
The registration process was designed such that it was easy to manipulate it. It was open to manipulation. Lands which were owned by communities of village were registered under the name of a single land owner. The merchants and local administrators of ottoman registered large number of lands in their names. The result was that the land would become the legal property of those who never used to live there. And the peasants who made best use of land and cultivated it, stayed there for their lifetime were not the owners. The peasant just became the tenants of the owners. So it can be said that the land code was full of dissatisfaction for the peasants throughout the Ottoman Empire.
Source: www. OttomanEmpire
If you have any contradictory evidence, please post it.
Land ownership rights are not derived from government. The inhabitants who had lived on and worked the land for generations inherently had rights to that land.
Whose land are you living on and making a living on? Who are you paying your taxes to, the Native Americans. I am part Native American.
Relevance?
I believe you are a hypocrite. After reading your work, you believe that no European Jews should have the right of autonomy in the in the Middle East, since it is all Muslim land and all under some form of Islamic sharia. Where did your families come from? And why do you chose to live on land that was brutally taken from the indigenous people?
You appear to be fine with the land being under four hundred years of a Turkic people: “The concept of “Land ownership” under Islamic rule was unknown, no one owned land”, which is not even factual as I have pointed out. The land belonged to the Ottoman State, and eventually they starting selling the land because the empire needed the taxes.
I believe no such thing, as I’ve repeatedly made perfectly clear in my comments on this page. The only hypocrite here is you, and it’s highly instructive that you feel it necessary to resort to such an asinine strawman argument to try to sustain your hypocritical view.
You are violating the terms of use of this site with this kind of comment. One warning. Do that again and you’ll be banned.
Nice dodge to a legitimate question. “I believe you are a hypocrite”, so now you want to ban me for my belief! I use no vulgarity, no personal attacks, no sexual references, and you want to ban me for being honest about what I believe? I cannot stop you, it’s your show, and it is constant with those who ban freedom of expression, another reason I am curious about your cultural values.
It wasn’t a legitimate question. How that fact escaped you despite my pointing out you were making an asinine strawman argument simply illustrates how incapable of honesty you are.
I support and respect the equal rights of all people. It’s you who’s hypocritically trying to defend Israel’s wholesale violations of the rights of the Palestinians.
The Government owned the land, or else, why did the Islamic Empire later start to tax farmers? And later start to sell the land for the purpose of taxing it?
Rights to the land belongs to those who live in and work on it, not to some arbitrarily defined political entity oppressing those who live and work the land with its threat or use of violence to enforce its will.
The British Mandate Palestine included Jordan, which is nearly 80% of historic Palestine. And then, who owned all the desert and the non-inhabited lands that Israel built up while building a nation?
The Palestine Mandate included both Palestine and Transjordan.
Like I said, the Jewish community in 1948 owned less than 7 percent of the land in Palestine. Arabs owned more land than Jews in every single district, including Jaffa.
You are a very good example of the expression “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” peepsqueek.
Land administration is not land ownership, the only land an Arab “owned” was the land he stood on, when he moved on he relinquished the ownership of where his feet had stood becoming the owner of a new piece of land where his feet stood.
The land any Arab stood on was his land, no one else could actually occupy it.
Arabs have a totally different culture to those in the West, it`s at least as subtle as that of the Japanese with far more variations that the Japanese.
Arab spirituality is quite unique, it created Judaism, Christianity and Islam which has had great influence throughout the world.
The nearest analogy I could offer would be the sale of houses in the UK, in London particularly. Houses can be bought “Freehold” which includes ownership of the land, or “Leasehold” which buys the house but not the land, which is simply leased.
You are believing what you need to believe peepsqueek, and that serves no purpose.
Please do not attempt to re-write history. Egyptians were not Arabs, nor did they speak Arabic. Syrians (Assyrians) were not Arabs, nor did they speak Arabic, Moroccans (Berbers) were not Arabs, nor did they speak Arabic, Iraqis (Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, Azides, etc) were not Arabs nor did they speak Arabic, Libya was not Arab, nor did they speak Arabic, the Sudan (tribal Africa) was not Arab, nor did they speak Arabic, Tunisia was not Arab, nor did they speak Arabic. Why are they all called Arab Countries, speak Arabic, and belong to the league of “Arab” Nations, and live under some form of Islamic Sharia, which is Arabian?
Your knowledge of M.E. history appears rather confused, peepsqueek.
“Arab” was a name created by the Assyrians, some 1.200 B.C. to describe the peoples within the Assyrian “Empire” which covered what was the Egyptian “Empire”. What we now refer to as “The Middle East” but did not include Hijaz.
Assyrians originated in what is today, Northern Iraq, Assyrians had no connections to modern Syria.
Islam was founded by Mohammad, who lived in Medina in the heart of Hijaz, only in 1934 did Western powers rename Hijaz as Saudi Arabia.
By your logic, “Muslims” would be called “Hijas`s”!
In the 19th century the term “Semite” was created as a definition describing “Of Middle Easter Origin”. Arab or Semite languages were listed, over 40 main “dialects” were identified, including Aramaic, Coptic, Farsi and Hebrew, with Semite developments of Latin and Greek, Maltese was also defined as a Semite language.
The Hebrews originated in Iraq, when it was Egypt, obviously. Abraham was born in the ancient city of Ur, near to-days Basra.
The Hebrews clearly were what today would be called Arab, or Semite, Judaism is also an Arab or Semite religion, as is Christianity and Islam.
That said, it is clear that there are three “Abrahamic” Semite Religions that over the centuries attracted converts from non-Semite or Middle Eastern people.
In the Courts of the 9th century European Emperor Charlamange, there were several European Jewish advisors, a Christian Court advisor, Deacon Bodo converted to Judaism, while his Jewish Friend Paul Alvar converted to Christianity.
Finally, “Arabic” is a generic expression that describes a large range of Middle Eastern dialects rather than one consistent standard.
Are all these people confused as well—
Kurd Net Daily Online News:
“For years the 30 million Kurds spread across those territories have been the world’s largest ethnic group without an independent homeland. Only the Kurds in Iraq, who displaced Iraqi forces in the 1990s when a U.S. and British no-fly zone was in place against Saddam Hussein, have managed to carved out an area of real autonomy.”
Coptic News:
“Since Christianity came to Egypt in 57 A.D., we, the Christians of Egypt, have not had conflict with the Jewish people. Copts have been a marginal population held in captivity for sixteen centuries. We constitute the largest non-Arab, non-Moslem minority in the Middle East. The Church of Alexandria, is one of the oldest organizations in the Middle East. Despite this distinguished history, it is a church that has been under siege since the Islamic invasion.”
Assyrian News Agency:
“Keep in mind that these Christian minorities, the Assyrians, Armenians, Copts, are actually the original inhabitants of these areas with roots going back thousands of years before Christianity. What we’re seeing is a systematic attempt to cleanse the Middle East of its original inhabitants, this is a continuation of the genocide that took place in Ottoman Turkey in 1915.”
I`m sorry, peepsqueek, but now you are resorting to the Hasbara archives, I simply don`t see the relevance of Zionist Genocidal Apartheid with the recent historical past of Kurdistan.
That said I shall indulge you!
There was a “Jewish Kingdom” in Kurdistan around 20 C.E. and it lasted longer than that of Davis and Solomon in the Levant. Like all of the several (many?) Jewish ruled “kingdoms” that have existed in the past the “citizens” were never exclusively Jewish, but the rulers certainly were.
The coming of Christianity then Islam attracted vast number of converts from Judaism which simply did not have the numbers sufficient to provide effective leadership, Judaism quickly became a minority religion. Today there are more Copt`s than Jews.
The last Jewish Kingdom was Khazarea, covering The Crimea, Ukraine and large parts of South Russia, it was the largest and longest lasting (7th to 10th Century) of all the “Jewish Kingdoms”.
Saladin was a Kurd, it took years before he became the undisputed Arab leader, by a combination of diplomacy and conquest. Though a devout Muslim, Saladin refused to use Islam to rally recruits into his army (at that time Christian Arabs were the majority, even today Lebanon Christians are 45% of the population).
Borders in the M.E. were unknown, rather there were spheres of influence, Damascus, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Mosul and Basra were the main ones.
This changed in 1918 when Britain and France imposed the jigsaw of borders we see today. In the case of Kurdistan, Britain and France could not agree who should have the mandate, so Kurdistan was allocated to Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The Kurd`s were not consulted.
From the very beginning Kurd`s resisted this fragmentation, which is a standard reaction by most Arabs in the M.E. who resent the artificial borders imposed on them.
The West created an artificial situation in the M.E. Collaborating Arab Governments who did as they were told, were given Western military support (First Britain and now the US) Western created Arab Governments who resisted Western interests were subject to covert and overt military attack by the West.
In time the M.E. will sort itself out, it`s a “will of the people thing”. If Israel is to survive it will not be because of a permanent military superiority (That has never ever happened before), Israel will survive only with the “will of the majority”.
And that peepsqueek, will only be possible if Zionist Israelis assimilate into Palestinian Middle Eastern society as did every single previous foreign occupiers of Palestine, with the exception of the Crusaders, and we all know what happened to them.
“I`m sorry, peepsqueek, but now you are resorting to the Hasbara archives”
Contact any Coptic, Kurdish, or Assyrian news agency and see if what I posted has Hasbara affiliations.
Interesting comments from Richard Falk, it`s pretty clear that Zionist Israel is feeling the effects of a BDS campaign that`s only just 10 years old.
It`s standard practice for Zionist Israeli leaders to play the role of victims, with BDS they are appealing to foreign Governments to “Do something about it”.
The problem for Zionist Israel is that DBS movement is a populist movement, a “Will of the People” if you wish, no amount of legislation will change any individuals opinion to support BDS, if a stores Bell peppers come from Spain and Israel, no amount of legislation can stop me buying the Spanish product.
It`s the same with any Governments department, banning BDS in the buying process simply cannot be enforced (we bought Spanish because it was the best value for money, or quality, or price!). Those that support BDS will not be prevented by legislation.
The latest Official Israeli figures reveal a 48% fall in foreign investment in Israel during 2013, it`s a moot point what effect BDS had on foreign company decisions that resulted in this reduction in foreign investment in Israel.
However, BDS has had a significant side affect in other ways, today more and more people are openly criticising the actions of Zionist Israel and who are impervious to the tired old cliche accusations of Anti-Jewish motivation.
BDS is part of an ever expanding number or organisation that are critical of the activities of Zionist Israel, they include many Jewish Anti-Zionist organisations, some withing Israel itself.
The BDS genie is out of the bottle and there is nothing the Hasbara propagandists can do that would persuade it to go back in!