By Albert Thyrniang
The most deep rooted living irony – the ‘Holy Land’ is in a war. It is ‘holy’ but we have jihad, ethnic cleansing, genocide, open prison, ‘apartheid’ and the rest of it in the land. Holy for the Jews, Christians and Muslims but these, directly and indirectly, are involved in the war. The area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River is deeply entrenched in the three sacred scriptures. Ethnic cleansing and genocides were God’s commands and enslavements were punishments. The Jews claim divine rights over the “Promised Land.” It was given by Jacob via Abraham while Muslims say it was handed to them through Ismael, Abraham’s first son. The current conflict is a continuation of the saga of violence dating to pre-historic times.
Scripturally speaking, 4000 years ago Abraham’s wife, Sarah forced her husband to banish Hagar, the Egyptian woman he had taken as his wife and who bore him a son-Ismael. Sarah who gave birth to Isaac in her old age told Abraham that their son should carry on his father’s so that God’s promise of making him the father of a great nation equal to the ‘stars of the heavens and sand on the seashore’ be fulfilled. The twist that is felt to this day, however, is that Ishmael flourished in the desert and went on to become the Father of the Arabs.
The dispute followed Abraham’s grandsons, Esau and Jacob. Rebekah, the mother tricked her old and blind husband to bless her favourite younger son, Jacob. Enraged Esau sought to kill Jacob, forcing him to flee to his uncle Laban. Jacob and Esau eventually reconciled but Jacob changed his name to Israel making him the Father of the Israelites while Esau is forgotten. Through deceit Jacob’s progenies went on to ‘inherit’ the Promised Land, which today is called Israel or Palestine.
Due to famine Jacob’s twelve sons landed up in Egypt where they and their descendants remained slaves for 700 years. The famed Moses delivered his people out of slavery and set their eyes back on Canaan, the Promised Land. However, it was not an empty land. Canaanites were there. The community was convinced it was theirs but the inhabitants would have none of it. So the entry into Canaan was a violent military conquest by Joshua and his troops. The Israelites overran the first obstacle, Jericho killing every man and woman of every age, as well as all the animals. Then followed the plunder of 31 kingdoms, mostly repetitions of Jericho! And all the acts of ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ were ‘God’s command to kill and take possession of the land’.
David established the royal dynasty with Jerusalem as the capital city but he endured a long rivalry with king Saul who plotted to kill Goliath’s victor several times. The consolidation of the Israelites is a tale of assassinations, plunders and the mass killing of the Canaanites. The slaying of ‘men and women, infants and suckling, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys” were on God’s orders. Parts of the description lack archaeological evidence, including the fall of the wall of Jericho. But that is precisely the point. It was a nationalist propaganda for God and the ‘Promised Land’.
The Israelites were plundered too. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon who invaded them first destroyed even the temple of Jerusalem built by David’s wise successor, Solomon and took the subjects into exile. The Israelites managed to return and rebuilt the Temple but the Persians were the next to conquer them. Alexander the Great took the land from the Persian Empire. Then the mighty Romans dealt a grievous blow. Jesus appeared at this time. After a revolt the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, burned down the second Temple and dispatched the Jews as slaves across the Roman Empire (second exile) across the world. The Romans renamed the region Palaestina (Palestine) after the Israelites’ better enemy, Philistia to spite them and force them to sever ties with their land. The Byzantine Empire favoured Christianity prompting clashes between Christians and Jews until Ottoman Turks put an end to the 1000 year empire. This led to migration of Arabs (majority Muslims) into Palestine changing its demography. In between, the crusaders took a brief control of the “Holy Land’ treating the Jews unkindly.
As a diaspora the Jews faced anti-Semitic persecutions wherever they were. The worst was Hitler’s holocaust that killed six million Jews. Since Turkey sided with Gemany in World War II, the Ottomans in Palestine were out. The British, the authorised rulers oversaw the mass return of the remnant Jews, enthused by Zionism, mainly from Europe. On landing in the land of their ancestors there were nostalgic moments for the Jews. But for Arabs they were irritations to say the least. Tensions followed and riots were the order of the day. Remarkably though, in 1948 the United Nations created the state of Israel: The Arab countries refused to go along and immediately declared war on their ‘strange’ new neighbour. The new state had no time to celebrate.
In 1948 Israel won the war inflicting violence on the Arabs. Seve hundred thousand (85%) Arabs fled (still referred to as ‘nakba’, catastrophe) to Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Iraq. In the ensuing wars and conflicts of 1956, 1967 1973 Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. Terrorist activities and Israeli brutalities were a constant occurrence.
In 1993 the Oslo accords were inked to implement the two-state proposal that would lead to the creation of the state of Palestine too. The Palestinian Authority came about. Area-wise Israel was left with 20 % of the land. However, extremist groups like the Hamas rejected it and continued the armed resistance against Israel’s occupation, prominently the well-equipped settlements in the west bank. Radical groups aided by some Arab countries still hold that Israel should not be in the world map. Palestine should be the lone nation. This ideology is not limited to Palestinians but to millions of Muslims around the world as visible in the slogans ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ in mass protests.
Motivated by scriptures the Palestine-Israeli conflict is a religious and not merely a political or nationalistic one. At least 170 references in the Bible mention Canaan as a gift by God to the Jews. On 55 occasions the promise was in the form of an oath while on twelve occasions it was stated that the covenant was everlasting. Hence whenever and wherever the Jews were in exile they longed to return to their ‘God’s given land’. For them the final fulfilment was in 1948. They will do whatever it takes to preserve their belief. They firmly claim the Holy Land. The fight against Hamas includes this objective.
Islam too claims the Holy Land. The Supreme Islamic Research Council in February 1970 proclaimed, “The Palestine Question is not a national issue nor is it a political issue. It is first and foremost an Islamic question.”, The Palestinians, majority of the Arabs and Muslims in general adhere to this proclamation. The Quran too says the land is blessed by God. In Islam the land of Israel is the second most significant place after Arabia. Sacred Islamic sites dwell there. The third holiest city is Jerusalem because tradition says Prophet Muhammad was carried by a horse on the “Night Journey” there. The Al-Aqsa, the third most sacred mosque is located in Jerusalem.
The Quran, however, unmistakably admits that Allah gave the Holy Land to the Jews. Then why should Israel be ‘Palestine?’ Muslims believe the Jews had forfeited their right by their disobedience to God who punished them through exiles, the final of which was by the Romans as they rejected Jesus, the prophet. So the land was given to Ishmael’s descendants instead. Many Muslims also believe that Ishmael being Abraham’s first son, whether legitimate or not should possess Canaan. Thus the rightful owners should be under an Islamic sovereignty.
With opposite theology the ‘Holy Land’ will perpetually remain violent unless religious elements are edited. Did God physically promise Canaan to Abraham? Did God really reveal to him that he would be the father of a great nation? Were they his own desires which he attributed to God? Did God command him to enter the ‘Promised Land’ and to mercilessly slaughter humans? Were they human actions which invoked God for justification? They happened in the pre-bronze age. Should they be pretexts to perpetuate the violence today? The land promised to Abraham is multiple times larger than Israel/Palestine. The biblical promise can’t be achieved. Why not accept that the Arabs too have a claim over Palestine for they too were there for a long time.
Muslims need not feel humiliated by the existence of Jews. The “righteous Islam” and the “evil Jews” mind-set must go if the ‘holy war’ is to end. We await the day when both Israel and Palestine will stand side by side. For that to happen both Jews and Muslims must transcend their religious beliefs.