Legitimacy

One of the world's oldest nations fights for its existence.

The “Israel-Palestine” conflict began, not in 2023, not in 1967, not in 1948, not in 1947, but almost 4000 years ago, with Isaac and Ishmael. Genesis 16:12, regarding Ishmael: “And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him…”

We need not rely on faith in scripture to justify Israel’s ancestry. Archaeology has provided abundant evidence verifying much of the Biblical narrative for the skeptic. This includes the Ipuwer Papyrus from Egypt, written more than 3000 years ago, that describes a series of disasters in Egypt, from the Nile River turning red, to the escape of the foreign slaves. Does this sound familiar? The Merneptah Stele is another such artifact, describing the Egyptian war against the Hapiru (Hebrews?), saying that “Israel is laid waste”. Many more such artifacts exist, including the histories of neighboring empires.

The Philistines were Indo-Europeans, originating from Crete or Greece, and not Semites. They controlled five cities along the Mediterranean coast of Israel, warring frequently against Israel. Wikipedia notes: “In 604 BCE, the Philistine polity, after having already been subjugated for centuries by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC), was finally destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. After becoming part of his empire and its successor, the Persian Empire, the Philistines lost their distinct ethnic identity and disappeared as a people from the historical and archaeological record by the late 5th century BCE.” In short: the Philistines assimilated.

After Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and Babylonia conquered both Assyria and the southern kingdom of Judah, Persia conquered Babylonia; Greece conquered Persia; and Rome conquered Greece. Rome memorialized the name of the existing kingdom of Judah in the name of the province of Judea. There was no Philistine province because there was no Philistine people.

The Judeans (Jews) could not relinquish their desire for independence from Rome, but they were no match for the Roman army. One rebellion too many, and Rome finally decided to rename the capital Jerusalem, and even to rename the entire land of Judea after their old, extinct enemy, the Philistines, now calling the province Palestina. It was not named after an extant nation or an extant people. Palestine became a geographical name.

For thousands of years, Jews yearned to rebuild their homeland, sometimes with the endorsement of supportive Christians. Even a few Muslims saw possible advantages for such a project. The Qur’an never identifies Jerusalem or the land of Israel by name.

After World War 1 and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire that was ruled by the Turks, Britain was granted control of the southeastern Mediterranean region. It was denoted as the British Mandate in Palestine. When the British attempted to distribute identification papers to the residents, calling them “Palestinians”, the Jews were agreeable, understanding Palestine to be a mere place name. Indeed the Jerusalem Talmud is also known as the Palestinian Talmud; the predecessor of the Jerusalem Post was the Palestine Post; the predecessor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra. It is arguable that Jews are the true Palestinians.

In contrast, the Arabs rejected the name “Palestinian” as an affront to their identity. Remember this next time you hear from a proud spokesperson for the “Palestinian”-Arabs, a Semitic people who speak Arabic like every other Arab, and who practice mostly Islam (with a few Christians), just like all other Arabs. Indeed, there was no independent nation between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River from the Babylonian conquest of Judah in 586 BCE to the independence of modern Israel in 1948 CE, 2533 years later. In particular, there has never been a “Palestinian” nation. Ask a supporter of “Palestine” to name a king of this mythical nation, which as we have seen, has no connection whatsoever to the Philistines.

It was the intention of Lord Balfour and many Christian Zionists to establish the entire British Mandate of Palestine as a homeland for the Jews, without prejudice to the rights of the other inhabitants of that mostly barren land. During the 1920s, after Arab pogroms against Jews, the British decided to chop off the eastern 78% of the mandate, the area of the east of the Jordan River, and forbid Jewish habitation in that region. The new region was called Transjordan, and submitted to the true apartheid standards of the Middle East: that is, the Muslim part of the Middle East. The western 22%, however, west of the Jordan River, would remain open to both Jews and Arabs: a one-sided standard.

It is fascinating that current discussions of the plight of the poor “Palestinians” never mention that they already control 78% of the original mandate, with those pesky Jews excluded under penalty of death. One might say that the “two-state solution” already exists: Israel, a mixed society on 22% of the land west of the Jordan River, and Jordan, an exclusively Arab society on 78% of the land east of the Jordan River.

These discussions also fail to acknowledge the nature of the conflict. Useful idiots believe that the dispute is over the location of a boundary line. It is not. “Palestinian”-Arabs do not accept the presence of a Jewish state within the 1948 armistice lines, nor within the 1947 UN partition lines, nor do they accept the existence of Israel within one square mile of Tel Aviv, or even one square meter. For them, Israel must not exist at all. The PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, was founded in 1964, before the 1967 war, showing their intent to “liberate” even the Jewish-inhabited areas. Note too during the 2005 Jewish evacuation of Gaza, that the Jews were required to dig up the bones of their dead, because the “Palestinian”-Arabs could not even tolerate the bones of dead Jews underground!

The useful idiots calling for “restraint”, “proportionality”, and “humanitarian” concerns, are actually prolonging the conflict and raising the long-run death toll. In World War 2, the Allies did the world, including Germany and Japan, a favor by waging war aggressively against the Axis nations. This includes the fire-bombing of Dresden, and the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These tragic acts are horrifying to contemplate, but they pale by orders of magnitude alongside the atrocities committed by Germany and Japan. Imagine how the war would have gone, had Churchill, Roosevelt, and Truman instructed their generals not to take any action that could possibly harm civilians. The Axis would have won, and many more civilians would be dead now.

The best thing the civilized nations of the world could do, would be to endorse, if not openly assist, Israel in the complete eradication of Hamas, just as President Trump did with ISIS.

See you next time.