Things to Remember

Separating fact from fiction with regard to territory rights in Palestine has never been an exact science. We continue to hear conflicting stories about who has rights to which lands in the Middle East. In his era, my father perhaps felt he had a very clear understanding of the so-called facts, though this understanding was not shared by all then nor is it now.

We need to remember, therefore, and we need to remind others that there are myths and facts pertaining to the crisis in Israel today, and we need to be able to tell one from the other.

TONIGHT IS SHABBAT ZACHOR, the Sabbath of Remembrance, the Sabbath before Purim, which this year will be celebrated next Thursday evening. Each year on this Sabbath the traditional Torah reading includes the statement in Deuteronomy, "Remember what Amalek did unto you by the way when you came forth out of Egypt.[1]" Jews have, indeed, remembered through the centuries. They have remembered Amalek, and also Haman,[2] one of his descendants, and all too often they had reason to think at the same time about enemies that were current rather than ancient. The present time is no different. We, too, think of Amalek and of Haman, but we are far more concerned with Sadat[3] and Assad[4] and Hussein[5] and their friends. We hardly need a commandment to remember. They impinge on our consciousness without effort day by day.
 
There are some things about them, however, which are often overlooked; things we ought to remember and that we ought to be sure the world at large remembers. It is distressing to note how much the world forgets with regard to the situation of Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, and it is distressing to note how much even worse those who profess a passionate concern for justice forget. It is distressing how much even Jews, especially those in the radical movements, overlook. We need to remember, therefore, and we need to remind others that there are myths and facts pertaining to the crisis in Israel today, and we need to be able to tell one from the other.
 
Perhaps the greatest myth of all that the Arab world tries to circulate is that they have a long-standing claim to the so-called occupied territories. In almost every discussion of the problem there seems somehow to be implied that Israel is extremely unreasonable in holding onto any areas which were taken either in the Yom Kippur War or the Six-Day War before that. The principle is set forth that any acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible. It is a miracle that the Arabs can say that with a straight face. It sounds pretty and just, but it is a brand new doctrine, discovered only now in order to justify the hostility against Israel and to make Israel look unreasonable and stubborn. Soviet Russia strongly supports this new Arab theory, but she is, perhaps, the one nation in the world that is most guilty of acting to the contrary. Without going too far back into history we have only to think of the territories taken from Finland, Germany, Poland, and Japan, while Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have been completely deprived of independence. And as for the Arabs, the very areas that they now demand to be returned to them were acquired by them only a short time ago by force. The West Bank did not belong to Jordan. In 1948 the UN intended the West Bank to become part of an independent Palestinian Arab state, but it was attacked by the Arab Legion and annexed to Transjordan, which then changed its name. The Old City of Jerusalem which was to be a part of an internationalized Jerusalem also became a part of Jordan by force. The Gaza Strip did not belong to Egypt. It, too, was to be part of an independent Palestinian Arab state according to the UN partition plan, but this, too, was taken by force. The Sinai was not taken by force, but, this, too, is not basically Egyptian territory. The Sinai had belonged to the Ottoman Empire. With its defeat, control passed over to Great Britain which also controlled Egypt as a protectorate. Egypt had been asked to administer the Sinai on behalf of Great Britain. When Great Britain withdrew from the middle east, Egypt claimed the Sinai as its own. But it never did treat the Sinai as if it were Egypt proper, and its inhabitants were never considered Egyptian citizens. The legal status of the Sinai may be today in some doubt, but Egypt has no more claim than anyone else. Thus the claims of Jordan and Egypt for the return of territories are based on myth and not fact.
 
Even the Arab claim to Palestine, in general, is also somewhat of a myth. We often hear that all of Palestine was stolen from the Arabs and settled by alien Jews. The fact is that no Arab nation ever lived in this area we have known as Palestine, and no national claim was ever made to this territory other than by Jews. Jews have a history of continuous residence in Palestine from biblical times on. Sometimes the community was larger than at others, but always there were Jews in the land. Arabs first came to Palestine in the seventh century and were always governed by various caliphate's from outside the land. Arab rule lasted for a bit over four centuries, but it was always foreign rule. There was no native government. When this foreign Arab rule came to an end in 1072, other foreign elements took control over the area thereafter up to the time of the Jewish State. The Arab nationalism we now hear so much about did not exist at all until after World War I, when a number of Arab states were created anew to satisfy their aspirations and the Jews were given an opportunity under a British mandate to establish a Jewish homeland in what was only a part of the original Palestine. Palestine was thus never an exclusively Arab country nor was there ever an Arab state there or an Arab nation. In fact for many years it was very sparsely populated altogether. Its land was neglected and its marshes breeded disease. It was only after the European Jews began coming to the land to build it up that great numbers of Arabs also came in from the outside. The large Arab population today has its origins to a great extent in 20th century immigration very much like the Jewish population. And Jews did not displace Arabs when they settled. They rather developed the land and made it possible for more Arabs also to come in.
 
What applies to the Arab claim to Palestine, also extends to their claims on the City of Jerusalem. They will tell us it has always been an Arab city, but Jerusalem has one important Arab shrine and that is all the significance has. It has never been a Muslim capital. Nothing significant was ever established or accomplished there. For the past century the Jews have even far outnumbered the Arabs there and during most of that time have been an actual majority of all the inhabitants of the city.
 
The Arabs elaborate on the myth of Jerusalem by maintaining that Jerusalem must not remain Jewish lest the holy places of Jerusalem be violated. This is sheer chutzpah. We know how well Jordan protected the holy places and how freely non-Moslems were able to visit. Although the 1948 armistice provided that Jews might have access to the Western Wall, no Jews ever were allowed to come. And what is even worse, most of the old synagogues of the Old City were destroyed. The cemetery of the Mount of Olives was desecrated by the building of a road over its graves and the gravestones were removed and used for construction purposes. Israel, on the other hand, has been most scrupulous since the Six Day War in caring for the holy sites. Every one is marked by a warning that their sanctity must be respected and freedom of access to all is granted. During the war itself, Israel sustained far more casualties than necessary because it refrained from attacking the holy places with bombs or with artillery. Many Christians have testified to this concern, and even though Israel will not permit Jerusalem to be divided again, it is quite prepared even now to relinquish to each religion the control over its own holy places.
 
There are many other myths which the Arabs trying to circulate. Let us examine just one more. The Arabs claim that they are only anti-Israel and anti-Zionism and are not anti-Jewish. If this is so, however, it becomes very difficult to explain why the Jewish population has decreased to such a large extent in Arab lands. Every Arab country that can be named has made its Jewish citizens so uncomfortable that in almost every one of them at least ninety percent of the Jews fled — in only one, less than ninety percent; in some, one hundred percent. Jews in Arab countries have suffered from pogroms; homes and other properties have been confiscated, many choose to have been imprisoned and tortured, some have been falsely accused and executed, and yet the Arabs persist in the claim that it is only Jewish nationalism in Israel they oppose and that they are otherwise unprejudiced against Jews. And the world which seems to be so disturbed by Arab refugees has not uttered a single cry about vast numbers of Jewish refugees that have been created by the Arabs. Israel is told it must compensate Arab refugees and repatriate them. Israel is also told it ought to send back to their country of origin those Jews who came into Israel since World War II. Are the Arabs ready to take back Jews into their own countries, assuming the impossible, that the Jews would consider going? Are the Arabs ready to compensate? They do not even have consideration for their fellow Arabs, let alone the Jews. They have used them rather merely as political pawns to cast aspersions upon the Jewish State. It is of interest to note that those Arab refugees who fell into Jewish hands after the Six Day War have found themselves much better off under the Israelis than they were under their own people. They live more comfortably and are employed more gainfully, and they themselves testify that it was Israeli occupation that made them feel once more that they are human beings and citizens.
 
There are times perhaps when even we Jews are overwhelmed by the propaganda we hear, and are tempted to wonder if the Arab accusations do not have some merit after all. It was so in Hitler's time, when the oft-repeated lie began to take on the appearance of truth and even many Jews began to believe it. It is so now when the Arab myths are widely circulated and give the impression that they have some basis. We must, therefore, remember —  remember and proclaim the truth. We must not let the world forget, and we must know and make known the difference between the myth and the fact.


[1] Deuteronomy 25:17-19 “Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way as ye came forth out of Egypt; how he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, all that were enfeebled in thy rear, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget.”

[2] Haman is the main antagonist in the Book of Esther, who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was a vizier in the Persian empire under King Ahasuerus. In the story, Haman and his wife Zeresh instigate a plot to kill all of the Jews of ancient Persia. The plot is foiled by Queen Esther, the king's recent wife, who is herself a Jew.

[3] Muhammad Anwar El Sadat (1918 –1981) was the third President of Egypt, serving from 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers in 1981. He led Egypt in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to regain Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967. Afterwards, he engaged in negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty; this won him and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. The peace treaty was also one of the primary factors that led to his assassination.

[4] Hafez al-Assad (1930 – 2000) was a Syrian statesman, politician and general who was President of Syria from 1971 to 2000. He sided with the Soviet Union during the Cold War in turn for support against Israel. While he had forsaken pan-Arabism—or at least the pan-Arab concept of unifying the Arab world into one Arab nation—he did seek to make Syria the defender of Arab interest against Israel.

[5] Hussein bin Talal (1935 –1999) was King of Jordan from the abdication of his father, King Talal, in 1952, until his death. Hussein's rule extended through the Cold War and four decades of Arab–Israeli conflict. He recognized Israel in 1994, becoming the second Arab head of state to do so (after Anwar Sadat in 1978/1979).