Dare to Speak: Islam vs Free Democracy and Free Enterprise (I)
Section 2.
The House of Islam’s relationships with specific non-Islamic nations
Islam’s early period of expansion, followed by decline and loss of territory, has created a messy mix of Muslim populations in lands that are otherwise non-Islamic. In addition, a resurgence of Islamic expansionism and fervency has created problems in places where Islam had previously not been a factor. This section summarizes examples of nations that have been particularly affected by Islam’s spirit of Jihad. While it cannot portray the complete story of any single country, its snapshots reveal a composite image of Islam’s history with non-Islamic lands. The picture one gets is of a religion that spreads violence, rules through oppression, and leaves chaos.
Israel
Though it is not geographically a part of the West, Israel’s history, population, and political institutions make it an enclave of Western culture in a region that Muslims consider their own.
Long before the time of Muhammad, Israel’s territory was known as the Land of the Jews. Around 1200 BC, it became populated by the Twelve Tribes of Israel. In about 1000 BC, King David established his kingdom. Years later, it was divided into Israel and Judah. It was conquered by Assyria, but restored by Assyria’s conqueror, Babylon. Under Imperial Rome, it was a province known as Judea. In 70AD, it was crushed by Rome in response to an insurrection. The resulting dispersal of Jews throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia became known as the Diaspora.
Modern Israel was born out of the religious persecution that Jews suffered in Europe. In the late 1800s, a Jewish visionary named Theodore Herzl started the Zionist movement, which encouraged Jews to buy land in the Ottoman Empire and re-establish a Jewish homeland. The weak and crumbling Ottomans encouraged this immigration with two goals in mind:
Populate a nearly deserted province.
Build political support in a land where most subjects were Arabs hostile to Ottoman control.
To get an idea of how destitute the area was, note that Jerusalem’s population during the 1890 census was only about 36,000. This city had existed for thousands of years and should have been a prospering tourist destination for millions of pilgrims. Instead, it was a sleepy little town.
In an effort to improve the region’s vitality, and to curry favor with their British protectors, the Ottoman Empire encouraged diverse groups of Westerners to immigrate, including Catholics and Protestants. It was Europe’s Jews, however, who responded most enthusiastically. Their eagerness to settle around Jerusalem stemmed from both the persecution they suffered in Europe and their historical attachment to the area. At that time, hostility toward Jews in the vicinity of Jerusalem was minor compared to what they experienced in much of Europe, and Jews were allowed to buy land freely. In response, Jews bought much of the land in their historical home.
After World War I, the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into Turkey, the French mandates of Syria and Lebanon, and the British mandates of Trans-Jordan and Iraq. When England prepared to administer its mandates, its Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, decided to accede to heavy petitioning from Jews for a Jewish homeland defined largely by the properties purchased by Jews during Ottoman times. This homeland, named Palestine, was carved from Trans-Jordan, and Jewish immigration escalated dramatically.
Not surprisingly, Palestine’s natives perceived this action as a foreign invasion. Thus began the conflicts between indigenous Palestinians and Jewish immigrants. After World War II, and in the wake of the Holocaust, worldwide sympathy for Jews encouraged an even greater flow of Jews to Palestine. This surge of immigrants exacerbated the conflict with natives.
The Middle East for Dummies provides a concise summary of the events that led to the founding of Israel. It starts by describing the Arab response to Jewish mass-immigration in the 1920s: [1]
…the Arabs didn’t stand by idly watching events take place. Their frustration with continued developments led to a series of particularly violent revolts in the 1920s and 1930s. The discovery of a secret Jewish arms cache in 1935 forced an alliance between Arab factions, called the Arab Higher Commission (AHC) the following year. Heading the AHC, Hajj Muhammad Amin al Husseini rejected a British proposal for a joint legislative council of Arabs and Jews in 1936. The next year he also rejected the British Pell Commission’s suggestion of a partition of Palestine. Eventually he fled Palestine to Lebanon and spent his time attempting to lead Arab opposition in exile [The author discretely fails to mention that al Husseini joined forces with Adolf Hitler, as described later in this series under the sections entitled “Yugoslavia” and “Germany”].
Forming modern day Israel
Unable to contain the violence, the British decided to withdraw from Palestine. A series of key developments determined the formation of the modern state of Israel:
1947: Through Resolution 181, the fledgling United Nations resolves to partition Palestine, giving roughly half to the Jews and half to the Arabs. The Jews accept, but the Arabs reject the resolution.
May 14, 1948: The British Mandate ends as the last British high commissioner withdraws from Palestine.
May 14, 1948: The Jewish National Council declares Israel an independent state.
May 1948…: Immediately, the First Arab-Israeli War erupts. As a result, Israel gains nearly half of the Palestinian share of the land…
In this last bullet, the author glosses over the question of how the First Arab-Israeli war started, but seems to imply Israeli aggression. Fortunately, a clearer picture of events can be found at Jordan’s official website for former King Hussein bin Talal, a source that cannot be accused of Zionism. It states: “Immediately after the proclamation of the state of Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Iraq sent troops to join with Jordanian forces in order to defend their brethren, the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine.”[2] In other words, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq joined forces and attacked Israel.
Continuing with the history provided by The Middle East for Dummies:
1949: After the war, the Palestinians basically say, “Okay, we’ll accept U.N. Resolution 181. Give us back our land.”
1949: The Jews more or less say, “No way! Too late! You had your chance.”…
This development left 600,000 Israelis in charge of nearly ¾ of the land, and 1.2 million Arabs to eke out a living on the remaining ¼, although some 700,000 of those Palestinians became refugees, mostly in Trans-Jordan. The Israelis made two important decisions that further affected the population.
They allowed the Arabs living within Israel’s new borders to remain and eventually awarded them Israeli citizenship.
The 1950 Law of Return encouraged the immigration of any Jew living anywhere in the world.
This last bit of history belies Muslim propaganda that claims the Jews chased the Palestinians out of Israel during the war. The truth is that the Palestinians who left did so to join Arab forces in the fight against Israel.
Despite Israel’s apparent liberality toward its remaining Arab population, the idea of living under Jewish authority was an anathema to many of the native Muslims and Christians. Many of these chose to be exiles, and set up refugee camps in what has come to be known as the Palestinian territories, while others moved to nearby Arab lands.
The Palestinians and surrounding Arab nations were outraged at the thought of a Jewish nation usurping land claimed by the House of Islam, and they resolved to destroy Israel. However, the series of wars that followed ended, each time, in Israel’s favor, often with a concomitant expansion of territory. This outraged the Arab nations even more, and deepened their sense of humiliation and hatred.
In the face of this hatred, Israel has tried to secure peace treaties by offering back some of the land acquired through war. This “Land for Peace” policy has resulted in peace treaties with both Egypt and Jordan. Israel has also tried to use this policy to establish peace with the Palestinians. It gave substantial territories to them, which are now governed by the Palestinian Authority, and promised to work with the Authority to establish an independent Palestinian nation.
Despite some progress, these developments have not even come close to normalizing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Israel’s treaties with Egypt and Jordan were purchased by giving away substantial territories, and they did little to build a genuine sense of comity. In fact, their unfriendly relations have given rise to a new term: “Cold Peace.”
In the case of the Palestinians, Israel found that its land concessions were not interpreted as an olive branch, but as a retreat, which encouraged the Palestinians to become more aggressive. Even worse, the Palestinians elected Hamas to lead the Palestinian government. The official charter of Hamas calls unequivocally for Israel’s annihilation. Israel’s other neighbors only refrain from attacking because they fear that they might lose.
A disturbing aspect of Israel’s recent history is its motivation for giving away the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Israel’s leaders realized that if they kept the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the rapidly growing Palestinian populations (the average number of children per woman is greater than 4[3]) would soon give Muslims an absolute majority in Israel. If this were to happen, Israel would have to either renounce its claim of being a Free Democracy or succumb to an Islamic majority at the ballot box.
Today, Israel stands in the crosshairs of a hatred that has spread from its neighbors to the entire Islamic world. In fact, when Muslims today want to decide whether a nation is hostile to Islam, their acid test is that nation’s policy toward Israel. Any leniency toward Israel is met with an outrage that is unreceptive to discussion or reason.
At first glance, Muslim outrage may seem justified. However, a deeper look reveals a one-sided recollection of history that is characteristic of extreme bias. While decrying the inability of Palestinians to find work in Israel, because of barriers that hinder transportation back and forth from Palestinian lands, Islamic nations have provided scant support to their own Palestinian exiles, the majority of whom continue to languish without the rights of citizenship in refugee camps founded nearly sixty years ago. [4] [5] In contrast, Palestinian Israelis enjoy greater freedoms than their Arab brothers in the Middle East, regardless of whether they live inside or outside of refugee camps. Palestinian Israelis represent about 18% of Israel’s population and hold about 10 seats in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament). [6] Incidentally, the United States has also been far kinder to Palestinian exiles than the Islamic world has been. Many Palestinians have immigrated to the United States and have received full citizenship.
Obviously, Muslims are not outraged by the mistreatment of Palestinians living under the rule of Israel or its allies. One can only conclude that the true motivation behind Muslim outrage is the knowledge that Jews, particularly foreign Jews, have gained political control over land that Muslims claim is in the House of Islam. Even worse, those Jews have rebuffed attacks and prospered economically while the surrounding Muslim lands languish in poverty. Israel’s success, by itself, is an insult to Islam, as well as Arab pride.
Another way to see through the fog of Palestinian/Muslim outrage, as well as Israel’s own claims of victimhood, is to notice the inability of either side to find a solution to their land disputes. The land currently being fought over is a thin strip along the West Bank border of Israel. Israel’s leaders want to release most of the West bank because of its high Muslim population. Similarly, most Muslim leaders have declared that they would accept Israel if it returned to its 1967 borders, ceding outer areas to the Palestinian Authority. The strip of land claimed by both the Palestinian Authority and Israel comprises less than 50 square miles. This is a miniscule quantity, even when compared to the rest of the Palestinian territories. Moreover, most of this land is infertile and relatively unsettled.
Sadly, Israelis have been nearly as hard-headed regarding territory as the Palestinians. An interesting indicator of Israeli attitudes comes from a BBC article on Israeli settlers’ resistance to their forced removal from the Gaza Strip in 2006: [7]
…as bulldozers moved towards the outpost, protestors linked arms around the buildings due to be demolished and pelted the troops with stones, paint-filled balloons and eggs.
When the settlers resisted the eviction, troops wielding sticks charged the crowds and scuffles broke out.
…
“They are treating people here like Arabs,” Arieh Eldad of the National Union Party told Israel Radio.
Despite Israel’s heavy hand in the Palestinian Territories, there are three important arguments in its favor:
The West Bank territory was won in a war where Israel was not the aggressor.
The 1967 Six Day War is famous in Israel and infamous among Arabs because it is the war that handed the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Sinai Peninsula to Israel. Its stage was set on May 16th, 1967, when Egypt’s President Nasser ordered UN Peacekeepers to evacuate the Sinai Peninsula so that they would not be caught up in an impending war. The Peacekeepers immediately complied because they were equipped to maintain peace, not engage in battle. With the Peacekeepers out of the way, Nasser declared war on Israel on May 18th, saying:
As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain any more to the UN about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence. [8]
In the days that followed, other Arab leaders chimed in with similar calls for Israel’s extermination. However, action was delayed while Syria haggled with Egypt and Jordan over who would command the exterminating army. Confronted with this impending onslaught, Israel took advantage of the delay. On June 5, it launched a surprise attack on Egypt’s Air Force and virtually wiped it out. With the forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in disarray, Israel rapidly took command of all theaters and pacified the Arab nations. [9]
Some may claim that Israel was the aggressor in this war because it actually fired the first shot. However, reasonable people would think it absurd for a nation to sit idly while its enemies on three sides moved forward with announced plans to exterminate it. War was clearly declared on Israel, and Israel acted in self-defense.
By the rights of conquest that every victorious country has ever lived by, the West Bank Territory is Israel’s to give away, and they can give away as much or as little as they desire.
It is equally absurd to think that a nation is obligated to give away territory won in a defensive war, particularly when the aggressors did not seek conquest, but extermination.
We can be certain that if the Arab nations had won, they would have been far less generous to the Israelis than the Israelis have been to them.
In the conflicts between Israel and its neighbors, only Arab nations, together with their Islamic allies, have used phrases like “total war,” “exterminate,” and “wipe off this disgraceful blot [Israel] from the face of the Islamic world.” [10] In contrast, the language of Israel has consistently been defensive. It insists on its right to exist, but also demonstrates a willingness to trade away land for solid peace agreements. Israel’s language and actions do not demonstrate a desire for conquest, much less a desire to destroy any group of people.
To citizens of a nation like the United States, which acquired a number of territorial claims from other nations by purchasing them, [11] an obvious solution suggests itself: Either Israel or the Palestinian Authority should purchase undisputable rights to the lands in question.
And yet this solution eludes both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Why? The only answer is that neither side is willing to sell their claim to the disputed land for any price. The Palestinians would rather kill and be killed than relinquish a single inch of land, no matter how well off the transaction could make them. And, while the same could be said of the Israelis, the fact is that they won their land in a defensive war: it is theirs to give away or keep.
One often-heard justification for Palestinian claims to land is that the Palestinian Territories are too small to be viable as a nation. This argument falls apart, though, at the slightest challenge, because, in comparison to the Gaza Strip’s 140 square miles, and the Palestinian West Bank’s 2,270 square miles, the nations of Monaco (0.7 sq. mi.), Nauru (8.5 sq. mi.), Tuvalu (9 sq. mi.), San Marino (24 sq. mi.), Liechtenstein (62 sq. mi.), and the Marshall Islands (70 sq. mi.) are tiny. If those nations can survive, then a nation with a total of 2,410 square miles should be able to get by. Furthermore, the roughly 50 miles of disputed territory is negligible compared to the land Israel has already given away to create the Palestinian state.
The people of the Palestinian Territories have been under foreign domination for thousands of years, and have never enjoyed independence until now. Their rulers changed from Rome, to Persia, to Umar’s Arabian Caliphate, to the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, to the Seljuk Caliphate of Rum, to the Fatimids of Cairo, to the European Crusaders, to the Turkish Ottoman Empire, to the British Authority, and, finally, to Israel, which intends to grant them sovereignty. Their squabble over 50 square miles is an act of ingratitude that squanders any opportunity for goodwill between it and its most important trade partner. Unfortunately, with Hamas gaining control of the Palestinian Authority and turning to Iran as Western aid is cut off, [12] it is becoming less likely that the Palestinians will recognize their bad manners and more likely that relations will worsen. With Iran and Syria supporting Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite organization founded to destroy Israel, we have the makings of a war that could engage Israel in another fight for its life, which could also engulf the entire Middle East.
As bad as this sounds, Israel faces a long-term internal problem that could be just as devastating. As long as the birth rates of Israeli Muslims exceeds those of Jews, it is only a matter of time before Muslims gain political dominance, unless Israel renounces its claim to Free Democracy and travels further down the road of apartheid-like policies that began when Israel governed the Palestinian Territories. [13]
Both scenarios lead Israel to a dead end: if Israel remains a Free Democracy, it will eventually become dominated by Muslims who will re-shape its laws into Shari’ah. If Israel renounces Free Democracy, then it will lose the moral high ground it currently uses to build support in nations that provide it with economic and military aid. If the latter case happens, Israel could become completely isolated. Once isolated, it would be ripe for Islamic military conquest.
Perhaps Israelis can take comfort in the fact that the Koran actually legitimizes Israel’s existence, despite claims to the contrary by Palestinians and their Muslim sympathizers. This is what the Koran has to say, in both authoritative translations:
[17.104] YUSUF ALI And We [Allah] said thereafter to the Children of Israel, “Dwell securely in the land (of promise)”: but when the second of the warnings came to pass, We gathered you together in a mingled crowd.
[17.104] PICKTHAL: And We [Allah] said unto the Children of Israel after him [Moses]: Dwell in the land; but when the promise of the Hereafter cometh to pass We shall bring you as a crowd gathered out of various nations.
It is strange that Muslims seem oblivious to this portion of their own Koran. Perhaps the Jews of Israel should focus on convincing their Muslim brothers that the Day of Judgment has not yet come, and that its timing is for God to decide, not the political or religious leaders of Islam.
REFERENCES FOR SECTION 2:
[1] The Middle East for Dummies, by Craig S. Davis, PhD, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003, Chapter 6, entitled The Modern Middle East, pages 88 – 89.
[2] See http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/his_palestine.html.
[3] Populations and Demographic Developments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip until 1990, a study prepared by Dr. Wael R. Ennab, presented at the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), June 28, 1994.
[4] In-depth study of Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, published in February, 2000 by Fafo (an independent research foundation founded by the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions in 1982) in a joint research project with the Jordan.
[5] Why are Palestinians still living in refugee camps? Where are they from and why don’t they go home? published by The U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation of Palestine. Website: www.endtheoccupation.org.
[6] The Middle East for Dummies, by Craig S. Davis, PhD, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003, Chapter 6, entitled The Modern Middle East, page 139.
[7] Settlers clash with Israeli troops, BBC News, February 1, 2006.
[8] The Case For Israel, by Isi Leibler, Australia: The Globe Press, 1972, page 60.
[9] The Middle East for Dummies, by Craig S. Davis, PhD, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003, Chapter 11, entitled The Powder Keg: Israel and Palestine, pages 141 – 144.
[10] Blair ‘revolted’ by ‘destroy Israel’ call of Iranian president, by Sam Knight, The Times (U.K.), October 27, 2005.
[11] The Louisiana Purchase from France, the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, and the Alaska Purchase from Russia.
[12] Iran’s leader offers to fund Hamas government, Associated press, MSNBC News, February 22, 2006.
[13] From Israel: An Apartheid State? by Leila Farsakh, published in Le Monde Diplomatique, November 2003:
After the 1967 war Israel consolidated its claims to the occupied land. The rightwing government elected in 1977 developed an elaborate policy of territorial integration and demographic separation. The military government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip…expropriated and enclosed Palestinian land and allowed the transfer of Israeli settlers to the occupied territories: they continued to be governed by Israeli laws. The government also enacted different military laws and decrees to regulate the civilian, economic and legal affairs of Palestinian inhabitants.
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