Free Palestine? No Thanks

The Western Wall

 Free Palestine? No thanks. This is a YouTube video referenced in a previous post. I added a few things and didn't give over his whole talk but you can visit Oren at travelingisrael.com

Here's some of what he says: 

 

It isn’t as if the history of the Holy Land hasn’t been documented for over three thousand years. (Think the Bible). Thousands of books, mostly about Jews and the land of Israel. Discovered in archeological digs are Jewish coins, Jewish texts, and Jewish artifacts. Nothing about a Palestinian people. 

 

The Christian and or Muslim link is based on the Jewish link. Jesus was a Jewish man. People who eventually subscribed to Islam essentially misappropriated Jewish sites.

Think of directional prayer.  Jews, before they pray, look at the sun to determine East. We pray to the east because Jerusalem is East of Chicago. Muslims have traditionally prayed toward Cairo, Damascus or Bagdad, and of course, Mecca, turning their backs to Jerusalem. These are their holy sites. Jerusalem only became important during wars against Christians and Jews. Conquer it, then neglect it. 

 

Jerusalem is mentioned some 600 times in the Jewish bible. Not once in the Quran.  

 

There is discussion in the Quran of Muhammad having ascended from Al-Aqsa. Al-Aqsa translates to the most faraway mosque. Who knows where that might be, but we know that the holiest place in the world to the Jewish people is Jerusalem. The Temples, two of them, built at the top of Mount Moriah, were both destroyed by invaders. First the Babylonians leveled it and exiled the Jews, then the Romans. This place, now a mosque but known to us as the Temple Mount, is where Abraham went to perform God’s will (sacrificing Isaac), well before the Temples existed. Turns out he didn’t have to do that. So it is holy to the Jews from the very beginning of Jewish history. Yet the Muslims control this mosque and bar most Jews from visiting the site. The closest we can get is the Western (Wailing) Wall.

 

It was the Romans who changed the name of the region from Judea to Palestina, intending to 

disconnect the Jews from their land. Then 700 years later Muslims invaded and colonized the Land of Israel. This is when they determined that Muhammad ascended to heaven from the place where the Jewish temples stood. 

 

You may be thinking, how crazy is that?  Muslims believing that Muhammad went to heaven on the holiest spot in the world for the Jews and yet this is not written in the Quran? 

Nothing, apparently, makes a place more holy than competition with another religion. The Muslims took the place holy to the Jews for 1500 years prior to the existence of Islam and made it their holiest place.

 

In the Waqd the Muslim authorities say that this is the location of the Temple of King Solomon. Meaning, they admit is.

 

When we get married, at the end of the ceremony we sing a sad song, the bottom line, that we will not forget Jerusalem. Jews have good memories. We have almost always lived in Jerusalem, even after exiles, even under the harshest of circumstances. 

 

The Islamization of Jewish sites is a real thing. In Hebron, one of the four cities holy to the Jews is the Cave of the Patriarchs where according to tradition Abraham was buried. To humiliate the Jews they could not enter, could walk up to the 7^th step only.  When Israel liberated Hebron in 1967 this changed. For the first time in 700 years, the place where the matriarchs and patriarchs are buried became accessible. This is the second holiest place for Jews. You may have heard of the slaughter of Jews in Hebron in 1929, a pogrom similar to what happened on October 7, 2023. The hate, the violence against the Jewish people never seems to quit, despite their contributions to humanity. I think I counted them somewhere on this blog, but just google this.

 

19^th Century and Zionism

So, we have this thing. It is a goal. Move to Israel, live in the homeland, make Aliyah, a word that means to go up. Jews have always migrated here. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries we came from all over the world. Europe, Africa, Yemen in small numbers due to the harsh conditions. But there has always been a steady flow. In the 1850’s there were more Jews than Muslims in Jerusalem. 

 

Even before the start of the Zionist movement there were dozens of Jewish settlements in the land of Israel. They bought land, did not steal it. In the last decades of the Ottoman Empire the Turks sold land to many European powers. Many settled in Israel to speed up the 2^nd coming of Jesus. No groups in Israel called themselves Palestinian. 

 

Before 1948 Arabs terrorized the Jews in Israel, this is nothing new, and destroyed Jewish cities like Hebron. Communities such as B’nei Yehuda, Kfar Saba, Kfar Uria, Ruhama, Hartuv, Hulda, Motza, Poria, Bet Shan, many rebuilt. Arabs also killed Christians. John Steinback’s uncle was murdered on his farm outside Jaffa, his wife and daughter sexually assaulted.  Mark Twain and Herman Melville wrote about how Arabs had neglected the land, their violence. 

 

From 1917 until 1948 the British and the French controlled the Middle East. Nobody liked them, not Jews, not Arabs, but the British needed to ensure they had oil from Iraq via Haifa and that the Suez Canal remained open. So they were pro-Arab. Colonialism is very fashionable these days but it is in the lexicon. Reclaiming your country is apparently colonialism now, if you believe the professors teaching students on college campuses today. 

 

The British Empire determined the borders, called this homeland Palestine, the Roman name for it and invented two nations that had never existed before, Palestine and Jordan. 

 

Another fact that tends to be ignored is that hundreds of thousands of Arabs from Egypt, Syria, and other places entered in the 1930’s and 40’s to work for the British. These are the people now seen as native Palestinians. At least half the Gazans came there during the British Mandate. 

 

They still have the right to self-determination. But when the UN proposed a division of the Land of Israel, just before the war that made Israel a State, the Arabs refused it and started that war, a war to eliminate the Jews. The morning after the Partition Plan the Palestinians attacked a bus, murdered five Jews, starting the war. When a city fell to Arab hands not one Jew was spared. After 15 months of fighting five invading armies and local Arabs, the Jews won. 

 

700,000 people were displaced as Many Arab villages were destroyed, 700,000 people displaced. This is what happens in a war determined to wipe out neighbors.  At the same time 800,000 Jews are brutally expelled from Muslim countries yet little is written about these pogroms which included 14 million Germans, 14 million Hindus, Muslims (the wrong kind, I guess), Ukranians, Armenians, Poles, people from the Balkans, and naturally Jews.

 

Yes, there’s so much more. But let’s stop here. Let’s just say that Israel has learned that this is not about sharing. Fooled me once, shame on you. Twice? Shame on me. I think that's how the expression goes.

 

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A little more about that dirtyword: Blame

Should I sue the hotel?

Not saying there's anything new, here. But is is a practical application, something to keep in mind when someone is busy blaming you for God knows what. 

When we think back later, we say, What a silly argument!

This morning FD left without his keys. He returned right away and knocked on the door. It took me awhile to open up and he was angry--at me-- for taking so long, making him late. The best possible spin on this is to assume that sharing emotions is a good thing, better out than in. Permission to let off steam is what healthy couples do.

So why does it feel so bad?

A few months ago, after stubbing my toe on the metal frame of a hotel bed, I cried out. Maybe I even cursed the hotel. It hurt a lot, warranted expletives, facial grimaces. The object of the anger, unclear. A person can't exactly rant at a bed frame, it is inanimate, doesn't care. Hotel management might care, but it is inconvenient to go to the front desk, ask for the manager, complain about a bed frame. So I let it go. Somehow we survive such things.

The mystery is when something happens and someone could be blameworthy, just a little, but still. Perhaps a child leaves a tricycle on the walk and someone trips. Or, looking around to answer a Where Question, we bang our shin on a coffee table. Or a document is missing, a bill, a check. If a housekeeper has been around in recent history, she's the first scapegoat. If not, anyone will do.

What could have been bad luck, clumsiness, or simple short-sightedness, becomes a gotcha' moment when someone's around. We assign blame. The front desk is in the room.

I've thought of a few reasons that people lose it, act either as little children or very scary adults when something goes wrong. We've all got at least of few of these working for and against us.

(1) Social Needs

We're born social  animals, and as infants can't get very far in life unless somebody takes us there, cleans us up, too, feeds us, etc. That first social experience, a mixture of biological and learned dependency, is never erased entirely. Our memories packs primitive, but powerful social expectations, Someone else should protect us, anticipate our needs, prevent us from harm, The best parenting, the most charmed childhood, won't erase the imprint. But it might make us less reactive to the thought of abandonment, more independent.

That primitive memory, our infant ego, unfortunately, is fed with wedding vows. (Not that you shouldn't get married, but it is a good thing to discuss).

(2) Generalization

Spouses or intimate partners become our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles, friends and lovers, all in one. They represent any and all of our people in the here and now and the past, too. Those who have systematically disappointed or hurt us get top billing. We might not have been able to punch back as kids, but maybe we acted out. As adults, the force is with us--displacing anger on a loved ones just feels right.

(3) Stress

Stress, perhaps from hunger or lack of sleep (new parents are particularly susceptible), often makes us testy. Add to that testiness a sense of hopeless over life's inevitable dilemmas and one more potch (rhymes with watch, means slap in Yiddish) becomes the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back. A decent crisis, post-potch, even over something that will seem silly later, evokes a  rise in adrenaline. Then the fight or flight relief response kicks in.

Except there's no place to go, because the problem, the crisis, has to be solved, the key found, the broken glass swept up. So flight isn't an option.

But fight is.

You're going to say, but not everyone does this, displaces anger, goes on the offensive when things go wrong. Some of us prefer to mutter to ourselves, shake our heads back and forth, occasionally pound a pillow, even when someone is home to take the blame.

So maybe something else is at work, perhaps annihilation anxiety is the answer. That might explain both the aggression for some people, and self-control for others.

(4) Annihilation anxiety.

If you have ever held an infant, you might be familiar with what is called the startle response, a noticeable shiver that disappears as an infant develops. But some of us know it is still there. We feel it when we're afraid. When we are small we are afraid quite often, everything feels dangerous, a bee buzzing around us, a parent with a frown. This feeling has been described as fear of annihilation, which might sound extreme, but if you're little you just don't know, especially if you've been subjected to child abuse,

Abused kids get negative messages about who they are. They are told that they are deficient, blameworthy, to explain frequent punishments, displacement of a parent's negative emotions about God knows what.

So when things go wrong, an abused person, to avoid more abuse, might jump to apologizing even if they have nothing to do with anything. This averts a crisis, owning responsibility,and functions to avoid annihilation. If they don't apologize, they keep it quiet, have learned that passivity is better than saying more, getting into more trouble.

Alternatively, abused kids identify with the aggressor, learn that the best defense is a good offense.

But not only abused kids learn that. It is a social response to stress that just works. Anger puts everyone off. So use it to your advantage, is the thinking.

The rest of us learn variations of the above, probably much less extreme.

So in the end there are no easy answers, no one size fits all.
But at least I know, when I stub my toe, that I have only myself to blame. And FD? Just a guy with too little sleep, maybe not enough food, and too much stress. That's all.

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