Introduction
Within the last 150 years, many Jews have adopted the Zionist ideology where they called for a homeland for Jews in Palestine. Based on this new ideology, they began their mass propaganda in the West and won the European and US support to occupy Palestine.
After a plan of mass migration of the Jews to Palestine with the help of British mandate starting from Balfour declaration in 1917, the Jews occupied Palestine and declared their state of Israel in 1948. This resulted in an endless conflict full of blood, persecution, forced expulsions, and apartheid up to this day where Palestinians suffer everyday.
But the original question should be: do Jews really have the right to occupy a land and persecute its people? This article shall discuss the claims made by the Zionists and answer them.
Common arguments
The Jews have been living in Palestine before Arabs
This has been the most common argument made by the Zionists to justify their occupation. They say that they are the original citizens of this land, they fled out of persecution and now they are back.
However, we know that the Jews claim that they are the descendants of Prophet Abraham. Did Prophet Abraham originally live in Palestine? No, he lived in Ur of the Chaldeans in Iraq. Are all Jews descendants of Abraham? No, there were converts to Judaism as well.
On the other hand, there were people living in Palestine at the time of Prophet Abraham. These people have witnessed many dynasties throughout history up to this moment. For sure there have been many ethnic or demographic changes due to migrations or wars, but this still happens with the majority of the lands in the world. That doesn’t negate the fact that this land has its own people.
Being Arab speakers, that doesn’t mean that their origin is from Arabia. The language changes due to political, cultural, and historical reasons. That’s why we see Latin Americans speak Spanish, Africans speak English or French,…etc. The same applies to Arab countries.
So in brief, there has been a people in Palestine even before the existence of Judaism. Palestinian people continued to live up to this moment and have been affected by interactions with the world, same as any other people in the world. The Jews were part of this history for sure, however, that doesn’t give them the right to occupy this land and expel its people to be refugees elsewhere.
Did God give the land to the Jews?
Another argument made by the Zionists and Christians supporting them is that the Jews are God’s chosen people and that it is the land promised by God to the descendants of Abraham. So based on God’s promise, we the Jews have the right to establish our state and expel the people living there.
As Muslims, we acknowledge that God gave this land to the Israelites when they were true believers. However, when they disbelieved in Jesus and Muhammad (Peace be upon them), they are no more believers. They don’t deserve the promise of God anymore. I really wonder how some Christians adopt supporting those who tried to murder Jesus and insult him in their Talmud.
In addition, this argument in itself is rejected by many Jews who see that there should be no Jewish state before the appearance of the Jewish Messiah. This has been a controversial issue among the Jews themselves up to this moment.
Many Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews opposed Zionism in the beginning for that reason. However, Zionism grew rapidly due to the persecutions against Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe. This made the Jews want to feel safe in a state that will be their homeland. So they decided that this would be at the expense of Palestinians.
In addition, the current “state of Israel” is not applying Jewish law but rather a secular law. So how come they are citing God’s promise then they don’t use even the law supposed to be “the law of God”? How would “God’s chosen people” reject His law?
If the answer to the above question is that chosen people here is based on the fact that they are only the descendants of Jacob, then this would be absolute racism, same as the Nazi belief in the sovereignty of the Aryan race and considering this as a justification to subjugate or persecute or expel other people.
The Zionists have been trying to use religion to justify taking over Palestine. However, the Jews who live in Israel are only 25% of the Jews worldwide. We don’t find a lot of Jews in Israel coming from Western countries, most of them actually were from Eastern Europe, Russia, Germany, and the Middle East (who migrated after the declaration of a state of Israel). We even find that the number of Jews in the United States is 12 million, which is doubling that in Israel (only 6.5 million).
Actually, when analyzing the history of the migration of the Jews to Palestine, we always find that it was always linked to some kind of persecution or political unrest in the other country. The Jews who migrated to Palestine for religious purposes were actually a minority. So the issue is not re-uniting the Jews but is rather protection from persecution or political unrest in other countries.
There was no previous state called Palestine?
This is a common argument made by the Jews that they are not occupying another country because Palestine doesn’t even exist. However, this argument can be simply debunked by the previous British occupation that called itself the British Mandate of Palestine. The name Palestine was already recognized and considered by the British, Ottomans, and previous rulers.
Palestine was already a part of the Levant region which is composed of Syrian, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. This has been considered as an integral region governed by several states before, e.g. Ottomans Mamluks, and even Byzantines. The disengagement was only applied during the Sykes-Picot agreement between UK and France. Based on this agreement, Syria and Lebanon were occupied by France, and Palestine and Jordan were occupied by the UK. There were people in Palestine as there were in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan now independent states, so Palestine should be a state as well. Otherwise, all the Levant should be united in one state.
Saying that there is no issue to occupy Palestine because there was no state called Palestine is like saying they have no issue to occupy a region in a country because this region wasn’t a state before. Would any country accept that logic? I doubt.
Jews faced lots of persecution in Europe so they needed a state
Catholics used to hate the Jews in the Medievals, that’s why the Jews suffered during the Crusades in the Middle East and Inquisitions in Europe along with Muslims. Due to persecution in Western Europe, they fled to the Ottoman Empire and to Eastern Europe. Then they suffered pogroms and persecution in Russia at the end of the 19th century along with the Holocaust. Due to these sufferings, Britain promised the Jews to adopt a national homeland that will unite the persecuted Jews. In the beginning, they proposed lands in Kenya or Uganda. However, the Jews insisted to take over Palestine. So Britain finally promised the Jews to consider Palestine as a homeland in Balfour’s declaration.
So yes, the Jews faced persecution throughout ages in Europe while they lived a much better life in Muslim countries. They lived in the Ottoman empire and they were absorbed in the population while they were massacred by Roman Catholics in Western Europe then by Eastern Orthodox in Russia and Eastern Europe followed by Nazis through the horrible holocausts.
Their response was to attack Muslim countries, expel Palestinians from their homes and take them over because they were persecuted by other people. How is this considered logic? Because some people were persecuted in a community they attack another community and take over their homes and land?
Jews are smarter than Palestinians and their existence makes the land better
This argument in itself is showing absolute racism. It justifies taking over Palestinian homes just because they feel they are smarter. It compares the horrible situation of the Palestinian areas today and forgets that they are the main cause of this situation. The Zionists were the cause of millions of Palestinian refugees, they are totally besieging Gaza and preventing their communication with the outside. They are filling the West Bank with checkpoints everywhere that a small distance can be taken within hours. Simply the Zionists are restricting Palestinians from practising basic human rights then they point out and say: Look how we made the land better.
Conclusion
The Zionists have been trying to give lots of justifications to their occupation of Palestine. However, when analyzing these justifications we see that this state called Israel is a state based on injustice against the Palestinians who have been suffering for more than 75 years.
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