The Arab-Israeli Conflict of Perspectives

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ladislav
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The Arab-Israeli Conflict of Perspectives

Post by ladislav »

Ever since we were children, we’ve been hearing about the conflict between Israel and the Arab countries around them, as well as the Palestinian problem. There’s also a virtually unlimited amount of information on how this conflict started.

What is not immediately obvious in the descriptions of this conflict and its origins is the fact that different sides to it have different points of view as related to it.

These sides assess this problem based on their own cultural understanding of things. Let us examine how these different view points and different ways of using logic created the conflict:

Let us start with the Jewish point of view and the Jewish logic.

The Jews traditionally consider themselves an ethnic nation with its own religion which was forced into exile two thousand years ago. It was evicted en mass and scattered by the Romans around their empire and then, it got stuck in its majority, in Europe. While in Europe, they were persecuted as aliens, non Christians and as a Middle Eastern race guilty of killing Jesus Christ.

And in fact, in most of Europe, they were never accepted as natives, no matter how many generations they lived in the countries and how well assimilated they were. The religion of the Jews was an important role in causing these persecutions, however, their ethnic, Semitic origins were causing it as well.

Hence, the birth of the term “Antisemitism” which denotes dislike for Jews by indigenous Europeans as a race or an ethnicity which does not, according to them, belong in Europe.

The word for a Jew in many European languages is their local equivalent of the word “ Hebrew”. In Russian, for example, Jews are called “ yevrey”, in Romanian, they are called ‘ evreu’, in Greek, they are called “hebraeos”, etc.

In Russia and the nearby countries, Jews were always considered a separate, non-indigenous ethnic nation, and thus, their rights in society were severely limited. Even if they converted to Christianity, they were still called “Hebrews” by societies and governments there and denied many rights.

It is important to note that to be seen as a member of a nation in Europe (including Russia) is not the same as being one in a country in the Americas. On the American continent, if you are born there, you are automatically an American, a Canadian or a Mexican. In Europe, they determined your identity by your blood origin and not by birthplace. Thus, Jews born in Russia were not seen as Russians, but Hebrews. Ditto for many countries around them.

When there was a rise of nationalism in Eastern and Central Europe in the beginning of the 20th century, Jews were largely not allowed to join it and were never accepted as Poles, Czechs, Romanians,etc.

Many locals were still treating them as foreigners and telling them to “ go back home” to Palestine.

Hence, as a response to the ethnic rejection and persecution by native Europeans, the movement of Zionism was developed which was a practical plan for the Jews to finally go “back home”.

“If the Poles, the Russians, the Romanians and other nationalities call us strangers and keep telling us to go back to the Middle East, well, we have to do just that, then.”

Note that there was not much Zionism in the Americas because the countries on the new continents were created by settlers and immigrants. The Jews who were born there became Americans and Chileans and Brazilians because birth in those countries automatically made you one of them. No one would tell them to “ go back home” if they were native-born.

The same was true in the Anglo-Saxon nations such as Australia and New Zealand as well as South Africa. Jews there were now fully Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans. Only very strong religious feelings would motivate them to go and settle in what was then Palestine.

Thus it was mainly the Jews of Europe including those from the Russian Empire that began settling in Palestine in big numbers as persecutions increased.

However, when they went to what the saw as home, they met local Arabs who disagreed that Palestine was a Jewish home.

What was the Arab point of view then?

Well, if you were an Arab person who had been living in Palestine for many generations and suddenly you saw strange people arriving in big numbers to settle in the land which had been yours for centuries, you would be shocked.

“Who are these people?” you would ask. “What are they doing here? What right do they have to come and settle here?

“What? They had a country here 2000 years ago and now they want to rebuild it?. On my land?”

Who cares what was here 2000 years ago? We have been living on this land for 50-60 generations! Go back!”

Thus, while Europeans saw the Jews as a Middle Eastern nation, ethnicity and race no matter how much they tried to assimilate into the European culture, to an Arab, these people appeared European or “ Khawajas” ( which is an Arab term for Western people).

“Where do you come from?” an Arab would ask. “ Poland”, a Jew would reply. And where are your parents from? “Poland”.

“So, go back to Poland, you are from Poland and so are your roots. This is Arab land”.

So, the Arabs in Palestine watched in horror as more and more people were arriving from Europe. Their skin was lighter than that of Arabs, they were speaking Russian and a strange language that sounded like German, which was Yiddish. And, based on their perception, the Arabs concluded that these were European colonists, and as the British and the French before, they were trying to grab Arab lands.

“Go back to Europe!” was the Arab reaction to the Jewish immigration, which they saw as yet one more colonization.

Another factor that led to the Arab rejection of these immigrants was the fact that, in the majority Muslim Arab culture and understanding of things, there is no strong concept of race or ethnicity. They did not see these Jews as a Middle Eastern race.

Traditionally, Arabs divide people into “ diana” which means “faith” and “ jinsiya” which means “citizenship”.

Jews, in the Arab mind are just a religious group, same as Christians. It’s not a nation of any kind because they hold citizenships of the various European countries they were residing in.

Thus, while to a Russian or a Lithuanian, a Jew was a “Hebrew” who was an alien in his country and who needed to be sent back home to Palestine, to an Arab, this same Jew was a European of Jewish faith and who was invading Arab lands. The Jews must be sent back to Europe, back to their original countries, which are in Europe.

If you add to this the Muslim belief that no lands held by Muslims can be viewed as legally belonging to non-Muslims, you have a recipe for a large conflict over what Muslims see as occupied Muslim territory.

Several wars and and many other confrontations took place and gradually, as Israel gained more territory, a people known as Palestinians- which was opposing Israel- was becoming more and more known to the world.

Many Jews denied that Palestinians even existed and that they were a separate ethnic or political nation. They cited the fact that there had never been a separate Palestinian identity and that these people were just Arabs and that they should go and live in some other Arab country. However, Jews were ignorant of the Arab culture, too.

In what way?

In the Arab world, there is no legal concept of an “Arab” . This concept is used informally to unite all Arabic speaking peoples, but it’s not a juridical definition of any kind. Arabs legally divide themselves into Syrians, Lebanese, Saudis, Kuwaitis, etc. “ Arab” according to many of them simply designated a person whose native language is Arabic. What determined a person’s identity was again, “ jinsiya” or citizenship.

So, while Israel officially considers Arabs to be an ethnic group and considers Palestinians as just “ Arabs” by ethnicity, Arab countries do not. So, if Israel tells Arab nations to take their fellow Arabs in, it will fall on deaf ears. They will just say that these people are Palestinians by nationality. That they are not Saudis, Jordanians or Lebanese, and that they should be living in Palestine. The fact that they are Arabs means nothing to them politically.

So, here you have two opposing groups of people who view things from two different perspectives each one seeming logical to those who hold them:

1)Many Zionist Jews see themselves as a Semitic nation which was exiled to Europe, persecuted and rejected by Europeans, and which came back to its original home, which is Israel. This return was based on history, the evictions from Europe, the Holocaust and various Jewish religious teachings which promise this land to them. They are now fighting Arab occupiers who call themselves Palestinians and who are squatters on the Jewish land. These Arabs need to go back to the Arab countries where they had originally come from. No matter if they were born there.

2)Many local Arabs view themselves as a Palestinian nation and the indigenous population of a country which they call Arab Palestine. Palestine is temporarily occupied by Zionists who are European colonists of Jewish faith and who do not belong in Palestine. These are not Middle Easterners but are originally Germans and Russians and Poles and they need to be sent back to their countries as they are not from Palestine originally. Does not matter if they were born there, as birth in a place means very little in the Arab view of things. For example, the American term of “native-born Israeli” does not seem to exist in the Arab vocabulary. Many feel that if the families of the Jews were not in Palestine before 1948, they should be sent back home to Europe. Whether Europe will take them or not is not something they care about.

Thus, based on their perspective and cultural logic, both groups often deny each other the right to have own state or to have own identity.

Only time will show how this conflict will play out in the future and this is a subject for a different video. One thing is clear: the ethno-religious nationalistic philosophies which caused the resentments of one group against another have created a great deal of suffering for a lot of people.

Thank you for watching.
A brain is a terrible thing to wash!


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Winston
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Re: The Arab-Israeli Conflict of Perspectives

Post by Winston »

Alex's response to that.

[6/22, 10:48 AM] Alex From Venice: there are some important "holes" and misconceptions in such simplified narrative of the origin of the conflict, but some points are correctly inserted in the story and explanation of the different perspectives

[6/22, 10:51 AM] Alex From Venice: one thing I'd note is that Jews never been totally non existent in the middle east, especially in Jerusalem. Claiming that Arabs never seen Jews for centuries is a false claim.
Also Palestinian citizenship never existed. It only existed the Jordan citizenship. Once Jordan had a peace treaty with Israel, that should have settle the conflict... but not it didn't.
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Re: The Arab-Israeli Conflict of Perspectives

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Winston:

Thats a great summary ladislav. But why did the europeans dislike the jews? Must be some reason. Not just because the catholic church brainwashed the europeans into thinking that the jews crucified Jesus right? U only use such unprovable reasons to justify your hatred of someone u already hate. Not as the root cause. Alex claims that the Catholic Church is the root cause of antisemitism. But i dont buy it. What do u think?

Ladislav:

Romans did not like the Jews because of constant rebellions. so they denied them citizenships inside the empire. Also the Jews refused to submit to the religions of Rome. When Christianity was adopted, the church again cursed them for not becoming Christians. Thus, they became stateless heretic outcasts. They could not practice most professions and the only thing left was money- lending. This became the mainstay. So kings would borrow money from them but then would kick them out. Stateless killers of God plus money lenders does not sit well with anybody. Also as people with no rights they were scapegoated for all ills of the corrupt kingdoms of Europe and the church would encourage masses to unleash their anger on them.
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Re: The Arab-Israeli Conflict of Perspectives

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[6/22, 2:06 PM] Alex From Venice: Very well said. it's true indeed that the main curse against the Jews was from the Romans

[6/22, 2:12 PM] Alex From Venice: They diabolically conceived to remove the roots of Jews from history by removing the name Judea from the Roman empire maps, so the previous named province of Syria Judea has been renamed off the historical enemies of the Jews... the Philistines.
So the land of the Jews has been named Philistea... that has become Palestine over the centuries

[6/22, 2:12 PM] Alex From Venice: but Palestine is the new name given to the Roman to the Judea land, the land of the Jews
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ladislav
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Re: The Arab-Israeli Conflict of Perspectives

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