Religious Freedom
In his book “Travels in Syria and the Holy Land”, John Lewis Burckhardt (1784-1817) was compelled to remark as an eyewitness that “the Jews enjoy here (in Syrian and Palestine) perfect religious freedom…Christians and Jews are tolerated because Mohammed and his immediate successors granted them protection and because the Turks acknowledge Christ and the prophets.”
However, instead of appreciating Muslim justice and generosity, certain elements within the Jewish community were never at rest; they never stopped seeking out means to upset the status quo and unsettle the accepted norms.
In the end, the illegitimate state of Israel was born on the land that belonged to someone, was developed and supported by someone, and was ruled by someone’s rules. No one can deny that the move was a stab in the back.
Doing so was a plain act of occupation, accompanied by unceasing acts of terror, displacement of the Palestinians, and the seizure of their lands as well as property. And just like any other regime of occupation, Israel could only survive on the premises of extra terror, extra displacement, and extra land and property confiscation.
Since its inception, and for as long as it has existed, Israel has been an apartheid state and will remain so until its expiry. Its inherent composition (existential DNA) is such that it cannot behave differently; it will never be able to shake off its identity.
Believing that Israel is “the direct continuation of Jewish history that had been interrupted 2,000 years earlier when the Roman legions had crushed the Hebrew freedom fighters and banished the Jews from Palestine” and that the Jews’ period of exile was a prolonged interlude in the history of Israel following which the Jews had now regained their rightful home in Palestine – is, to all intents and purposes, an outlandishly naïve thinking.
Reviving some ancient and generally hazy, plus inaccurate, events that had transpired thousands of years ago and trying to graft them and their remotest implications onto the dynamics of modern socio-political and civilizational realities is nothing short of an absurdity.
It is an endeavor to arouse sentimentality, suppress reason, and pursue the acquisition of as much popular backing as possible for a devilish purpose. It is a revisionary measure that not only touches upon history but also religion and humanity’s civilizational penchant.
As said earlier, Palestine was always cosmopolitan. Absolutely, no one was barred from accessing it and freely living or worshiping in it. Such is in full agreement with the message of Islam and its notions of “conquest” and coexistence. Islam liberated Palestine for the world, including the Jews.
It should be recalled that from 1920 until the illegal creation of Israel in 1948, Palestine as a geopolitical entity called Mandatory Palestine was ruled by Britain. It was during those years, especially after the collapse of the institution of the caliphate, that conceiving the nefarious design of implanting the cancer of a Jewish state in the heart of the Muslim world was upped, after which it was gradually put into operation.
The ultimate objective was recognized. However, during a transitional period, when the ground for the occupation had to be prepared, people’s psychology to whatever extent primed and the position of a dwindling number of powerful and honorable Muslim leaders be softened, all sorts of tricks and maneuvers were resorted to. Force, manipulation, and inducement dominated.
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Creating Zionist Israel
Thus, for example, before the actual creation of Israel, David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) – a Zionist leader, Israel’s founding father, and the country’s first prime minister – was proposing that a new state’s government should guarantee the idea of non-domination, i.e., complete parity in government between the Jews and Arabs, irrespective of population ratios. He hoped that a parity agreement would not be necessary forever.
He said: “The time will come when Arabs and Jews will work together in mutual confidence, and the lines of division will become other than racial ones. This consciousness of common citizenship will develop gradually as a result of economic cooperation, but until it has developed, and until the present racial suspiciousness has disappeared, it is necessary to have some arrangement that will prevent either race from being dominated by the other.” (John Philby, Ibn Saud, and Palestine).
These were the words uttered during the time of uncertainty when the idea of the state of Israel was still in its infancy, so some diversion and smooth talk was a necessity, and when devising a contingency plan was crucial, for nobody could fathom what the future entailed.
However, after the establishment of Israel, things dramatically changed and the events that followed are well-known.
For one, as the country’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion was known as a vicious man with stronghanded policies that aimed to displace or expel the Palestinians by Zionist militias and to keep the neighboring Arab countries at bay. His motto was: “What matters is not what the Gentiles will say, but what the Jews will do” (Britannica).
Thus, apart from the Zionist Jews themselves, Britain and its Western allies are to be blamed the most for the crime of creating Israel by means of dislodging the Palestinians, shedding their blood, destroying and taking their lives, and stealing their possessions. In that manner, Israel became a protectorate or a colony of the West; they were all partners in crime.
This, indeed, is the crux of the matter. It is all about occupation and a culture of cruelty – nothing else. So, commencing from Israel’s founding, the Palestinians could neither dream of nor experience better scenarios.
The most they were able to procure were some meager benefits for which, however, they were asked to relinquish their dignity and most basic human rights. In short, they had to compromise their values and make a pact with the devil, which, for the honorable and proud Palestinians, was not an option.
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