I never approach such large issues as the Palestinian-Israeli condition of land and settlement because I see no viable solution or compromise to appease or satisfy all sides. And, I honestly hold no strong credibility. So, go along and read somebody else's blog. :-)
Nevertheless, I wish to approach some of the complexity.
From a Jewish perspective, God promised this land to the Hebrews. However, what if there was an earlier vision from the Philistines or the Canaanites stating, “God promised this land to us.” Therein lies the difficult problem of “promise.”
When we speak of deity, how does that relate specifically to land ownership in modern society? Did God promise the shiny “city upon a hill” to the early pilgrims of America, as Indians ultimately were wiped out, sent westward, or integrated into this new American society?
Now Americans sing, “This land is your land / This land is my land / from California to the New York Islands.” I wonder what the Cherokee and other Indians think about that concept when their ancestors walked tirelessly to their land, Indian Territory, which ultimately became another person's land, a place I live now: Oklahoma? (We remove the guilt by calling it Native Oklahoma. After all, we all have a little bit of Indian in our lineage.)
My point above is not to disrespect Judaism or its heritage. (I don't even want to be angry at the United States or Andrew Jackson.) Jews have been through more suffering than any culture I have known with approximately six million dying during the Jewish holocaust planned by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. As Bart D Ehrman writes, there were “the cries of children, screaming from the midst of the blazing ovens.” So, if a “chosen-land” argument does not operate in modern society, then does returning Jews to their “homeland” after World War II serve as a viable solution to the problem of ethnic security? Not quite.
The aftermath of World War II is problematic for many reasons, but I want to only focus on this concept of Western colonialism that pervades the Eastern viewpoint. Then, unless this idea of colonization can be tamed and reconciled by both Western and Eastern expansionist philosophies, then the Israel-Palestinian issue will never arrive at resolution.
But, let's first discuss a bit of history before we reach this answer.
First, according to the Torah, Abraham existed in Ur, a land controlled by the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. In some respect, the Jews, if they are original descendants of Abraham did not have an exact geographical region. Over a period of time, after Abraham and Moses, Joshua—the great Hebrew military leader—conquered the land of Canaan. So, does Israel belong originally to the Canaanites? Or, let's move even further back into history. Does Israel belong to perhaps the Egyptians or the Amorites? How about the Moabites, Hittites, Jebusites, Philistines, Hivites, Perizzites, Edomites, or the Gergesenes? These cultures may still exist through some twisted DNA analysis, or they may be blended cultures that still represent what we always consider a purified version of Jewish heritage.
The problem is not simple. Can we truly trace ethnic history to its original source as a method of establishing who owns land or whose kingdom should remain? If so, then the Persians should be rebelling against Iranian authority, re-establishing their region without the colonization of the Muslim empires, and then returning to its original Zoroastrian principles. Of course, nobody is arguing for a Persian stronghold on Iran when Iran is, for the most part, now Muslim.
So, let's assume that since Iran remains its own culture today and predominantly Muslim, we cannot return it to its original owners just as we cannot return Native Americans to their original geographical locations. Then do Jews have any right over their rich heritage after they “colonized” the land during the Davidic Kingdom and established long-lasting roots in the region?
This answer is a complicated one, but we are speaking about 3000 years ago when the Twelve Tribes of Israel formulated a rich heritage based on Solomon's Temple—the first Jewish Temple in the region. Yet, the realistic answer sometimes is the harmful one. Our society during this period (and still now) divides and conquers, including the Eastern Empires—the Assyrians who in around 721 BCE conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the Babylonians who in around 587 BCE conquered the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and, finally, the Persians who between 587-444 BCE conquered the Babylonians. My historical point (if there is one) is that Eastern colonialism existed long before this “promised land” was attacked also by the Western Empires, such as the Greeks and the Romans. And, we are not arguing for the Persians as the rightful owners of modern-day Israel and Palestine.
Of course not! The Persians could not control the empire, and as I have stated, other empires continued to dominate not only Israel/Palestine but other geographical locations, too. Do we return every ethnic region back to its rightful owner? If so, then how do we remove European Americans from the United States and replace them rightfully with the Native Americans, whose languages continually die out and who probably speak English, for the most part, thanks to reservation colonization, too!
We cannot return to the past, yet somehow during World War II and before, Jews fled to their “homeland” as a kind of diaspora against the holocaust or as a safe haven to protect themselves for self-destruction as an identity. And, since the British before 1948 had conquered this land, they with the United Nation's backing had some rights to state how the land is divided, even though I am adamantly against this kind of colonization! Yet, we have to follow the lines of history and recognize the historical impact of geography as one method of establishing ownership, even though the conquered deserve their rights in court! However, whose court? In that case, does the United States, who boldly claims themselves as the Americans, return Texas and other areas to Mexico? Once a land is conquered, (dare I say it) it belongs to the conquerer. Or, does it?
Am I being naïve? Do we follow the chronological patterns of history as they are laid out before us and say that the last owner is the rightful owner? What happens if somebody holds a gun to my family and forces me out of my house? What if they take my house and force me to move ten miles down the road? Do I still deserve my day in court? Does the conquered deserve recompense?
Therein lies the difficult question. Here is why. Because the Jews have been conquered. The British have been conquered. The aboriginal Australians have been conquered. Conquering continues repeatedly. And, in 1948, Palestine was conquered by the United Nations' decision to make an Israeli state. I haven't researched the difficult questions to why the United Nations made this decision, and I have heard that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was somewhat skeptical about this idea, even though after his death, Truman was not. The Russians, too, were skeptical of this idea, but for some reason beyond my understanding they voted for a State of Israel perhaps thinking the Russian Jews might create a communist nation in the region. Who knows?
So, here we are. 1948. World War II aftermath. U.S. Army bases in Germany and Japan. The State of Israel fighting for its Jewish existence. The Middle Eastern countries completely confused by this decision and rightfully so! And, why would the United Nations establish a state in the middle of Palestinian culture when the aftermath could be a possible extinction of the Jewish race in the region due to this altering of boundaries that the British also created in places like India, which still struggles when land was divided among ethnic and religious boundaries: between Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus. What were the British thinking then? What were the United Nations thinking now? Isn't this kind of imperial, Western domination dangerous, and were various countries, including the United States, using the Jewish condition as pawns in a dangerous game of RISK or MONOPOLY?
If I were in the room discussing this area, no matter what any Jew or Arab might think, I might say, “Listen, Jews, if you take this land, do you realize that you will be surrounded by a group of people who have not really hated you that much before but may hate you now? Remember the kindness of the Islamic empires that allowed you to practice your religion peacefully? And, remember the hatred of the Christians who killed you in Spain if you did not convert to Christianity. Remember also the Crusades as you were slaughtered by the Europeans as they progressed toward the Muslim empire. Please, do you really want to be a pawn that is destroyed in order for some other King or Queen to abuse you in all directions?”
I wasn't born then. I don't understand the entire issue. However, I do understand a bit of the Middle Eastern condition. Let's talk about it.
The Europeans occupied Middle Eastern Cultures. The British and Russians colonized the Bengals and turned this culture into a production source for these two empires. (That's what empires do. They conquer and enslave the people, even though it is not viewed as forced slavery.) France colonized Algiers. Other occupied “Islamic” countries include: Tunisia (1881), Egypt (1882), Sudan (1889), Libya (1912), Morocco (1912). By 1915, the Ottoman Empire is divided between France and England. Let's add to the list: Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and Transjordan.
Treaties continued throughout the twentieth century, but Western Imperialism expanded and controlled lands far beyond their regions. As background reading, simply read the African colonialism in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness or watch the film Ghandi or Lawrence of Arabia. These three sources are only the tip of the iceberg.
So, Israel arrives in an arbitrary fashion as not only a “safehaven” for the Jews, but from an Eastern perspective, a place for Western expansion to continue. The term Jew is a social construct for Western colonialism, and when the Iranian President speaks negatively about the holocaust, he is really speaking about how Europe and, yes, the United States have conquered the identity and wealth of the region. (I want to make it very clear here that I am not a fan of Ahmadinejad!)
The West (and I will refer to “We” now) are in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Dubai, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, etc. etc. And, while Palestine and Israel may or may not want a two-state solution, we are still riding our tanks into the geographical locations of the richest oil preserves in the world. Even the Russians held major oil contracts with Saddam Hussein before we became the occupiers of their territories.
Therefore, though we have not “conquered” the Middle East, we are there as part of this Western Expansion still happening and completely hindering the Eastern expansions of the older empires: the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians.
So, what do we do with Israel? We create a two-state solution. Beyond that, the underlying problem is not resolved: the belief of Western domination of the Middle East. How do we get past that problem? Not so simple!
We find other sources of energy beyond oil. We suffer through such a devastating economic crisis that we must learn how to be a Jeffersonian democracy again. We take care of our own United States yet also maintain free trade instead of American-centric and Euro-centric capitalism. We allow the countries in the Middle East to maintain their voices without our warrior mentality. We take on a loving Confucian model without the patriarchy and show that world “the city upon a hill” again.
But, we still will have to protect Israel for the rest of history, because that land belongs historically to too many cultures! Some might argue to every culture!
There is no utopia here on this planet. We are warriors after capitalistic expansion, and he with the most toys and tanks still seem to win nothing but confusion and future disaster.
That's my conclusion for now. Otherwise, I am willing to concede no solution except for the Dalai Lama to intervene. Perhaps the Tibetans have answers that we Westerners will never solve.
--Jinglett
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