Many peoples around the world- Assyrians, Armenians, Catalans and Kurds, to name just a few- have attempted to gain or regain a homeland. The Jews were one of them and they had an excellent case.
Sections: Returnees; Zionism; Gentile support; Indigenous and Genetics; Condition of the land; Saviours; Purchases (no theft); The Jews transformed their fields; Arabs who enjoyed Zionism; Relations between Muslims and Jews; The Jewish perspective of Arabs.
(This page doubles as Chronology C: Through 1916 (with a noted exception).
Returnees
A small number of Jews remained in the Land of Israel after surviving the Roman wars, slaughters and exile. They were transformed from a prominent nation to lowly remnants scattered in the Middle East and then much of the world.
Even then, the Jews strengthened their presence in Judea (renamed Palestine by the Romans). The Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in the 3rd century and an autonomous Jewish Patriarchate withered in 425 CE. Christianity reigned at the time and, due to decrees, innocence and ignorance, many Jews converted or assimilated. Samaritans were another significant group in those days.
More:
Brandeis Center article about the Jewish connection to the land.
JPost article about Jewish life in the Middle East before Islam.
Throughout the centuries of exile, there were Jews who returned home. It was an arduous journey for most who attempted it and many perished along the way. Jews have maintained a continuous presence in the Holy Land since Biblical times.
The Palestine Problem Today; Israel and its Neighbors – 1953, p. 13. Archive.
Carl Hermann Voss, Chairman of the American Christian Palestine Committee.
Jews were the plurality of the Jerusalem population (the majority in 1910).
(British) Parliamentary Papers, Band 67 – 1874, page 992. Google Books.
Jews in Tiberias and Safed had their own currency.
The Land of Israel: A Journey of Travels in Palestine – 1865 by H.B. Tristram.
Page 576, Archive.org.
There was a community of Polish Jews in Tiberias. Ibid., p. 426.
Spanish Jews in Jerusalem. Ibid., p. 176.
Ibid., p. 576. More on p. 512.
Russian Jews in Safed.
Stirring Times by James Finn – 1872. Page 130 on Archive.org.
Between 1839 and 1875, the philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore compiled five censuses of the Jewish population in the Holy Land and each time they counted hundreds of organizations and synagogues. From just 7,000 souls in 1800, the Jewish population rose to 43,000 by 1890- before the Zionist movement.
“The Jewish inhabitants of Eretz Israel came from all corners of the globe…”
The Montefiore Endowment website.
Also:
Jewish Presence in the Land of Israel in the 19th Century: Insights from the Montefiore Censuses.
See Conclusions on Jews from India, Cuba, America, etc.
In the religious and traditional circles of Judaism, daily prayers, blessings after eating a meal, songs on the Shabbat and holidays, customs (as in breaking a glass at the end of a wedding ceremony), and so much more are based on reminders of Eretz Yisrael and a yearning for the home to be rebuilt. Modern Israel was the first stage.
The Muslims knew that the Jews hadn’t given up hope.
Contrary to popular belief, Judaism is much more than a religion. Jews are a nation and Israel is their homeland. That some Jews don’t care about this does not change the fact for those who do.
The Observer (London) – November 11, 1917. Full page.
A dramatic example of what the land means to Jews came from Ethiopia in 1848. The community, Beta Israel, was separated from the outside world for at least 1,500 years and then a religious leader, Abba Zaga, wrote a letter to Jerusalem.
“Peace be upon you Hebrew brothers. … They command us to separate ourselves from the Christians, to immigrate to your land, to Jerusalem, to join our brethren, and to offer sacrifices to God, the God of Israel, in the Holy Land.”
The original letter is in a Russian archive. A handwritten copy was made.
More: JPost (the letter), Aish (history), GLP (genetics).
The Ethiopian Jews sounded like the Russian Jews in Safed:
Finn, p. 130.
1800s before the Zionist movement
In the first half of the 19th century, the Ottomans barred foreigners from purchasing land in the regions of Southern Syria and Palestine. At other times afterwards, Jews were specifically barred.
In between, Moses Montefiore developed a village and assisted poor Jews.
The ruling Muslim Turks granted an area to a Jewish group in 1870.
The Manchester Guardian – September 2, 1913. Full page.
Similar:
Encyclopedia Americana 1922 , Vol. 16, page 101. Clip, full page, link.
Zionism
In general, Zionism is merely a word from the late 19th century to describe what Jews have been doing ever since they were exiled from their home. In 1862, Moses Hess wrote about Jewish nationalism in Rome and Jerusalem and he became the forerunner of the activism.
Specifically, the Zionist movement arose as a response to pogroms and wicked antisemitism in the Russian Empire and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, which was in the context of similar violence and discrimination in Europe and much the world over the centuries.
New York Tribune – April 7, 1882. Full page.
New York Tribune – May 24, 1882. Full page.
Washington Evening Star – November 3, 1882. Full page.
In parts of Russia, killing Jews was worthy of a postcard.
1906, unknown artist, Blavatnik Archive.
The international press in those days didn’t cover the full scope of it. Around 15,000 Jews were murdered by the end of the 1800s, hundreds of thousands were injured and thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed. 1881 and 1882 alone saw 200 attacks.
1931 article looking back at the first Russian Empire pogrom in 1881.
Jewish Virtual Library page about pogroms.
The 1906 pogrom in Bialystok- article by The Museum of Jewish Heritage.
In the centuries before then and around the world, there were hundreds of wide-scale acts of murder and persecution, and countless more against one or a few individuals. Governments (national or local), police, soldiers and clergy were often the instigators or complicit. Dozens of times Jews were expelled from a city or country. (Chronology D delves into the lies and propaganda behind the abuse.)
There was one exception: India. Jewish communities have lived there for nearly two millennia without persecution or pressure to assimilate (Times of India article.) The difference is that Indians were not tainted by racist elements within the worlds of Islam or Christianity.
The Spanish Inquisition.
The Khmelnytsky pogroms that started in 1648 saw up to 50,000 murdered.
Two incomplete lists of persecutions and atrocities: Global and Arabia.
A map of massacres of Jews in the Middle East and North Africa.
Antisemitism spawned Zionism and then the same kind of hatred in other people criticized the Jews for their obvious hope.
And it wasn’t just the Jews. Many other minorities in Europe faced severe issues (Eurac article) and this was the basis for the idea of small nations receiving self-determination after World War I (though the term was not defined). Even then, the Jews were different as many others at least had a homeland they could return to or would be treated fairly in some new countries, like America. But nobody wanted many Jews.
There were different camps of Zionism. Political Zionism from 1897, led by Theodor Herzl, was the largest and it hoped for the revival of a state where Jews would be safe. Herzl felt that if Jews no longer lived as a foreign presence within host countries, then others would have no reason to resent them.
Those Jews from Russia had a socialist worldview and they also felt that countries like Australia and Canada, with vast empty lands, had no right to bar migrants in need. All the more so, they felt the Muslims in the 1920s- who were not even the rulers of the land and had too much land- had no right to bar desperate Jews. On top of that, the Jews didn’t seek anything from the locals, unlike Canada and other governments that have to spend money and resources on immigrants.
Zionist intentions were honest and borne of despair. They simply wanted safety and freedom.
Hatred is ironic: Continued antisemitism over the decades has caused many Jews to move to the Holy Land- and the more Jews in Israel, the more land they need.
While most of the early Zionists were secular and a few anti-religious, the desire was based on their heritage. In the beginning, hope was all they could do.
Houston Post – January 27, 1918. Full page.
The Jewish colonies in the 1880s had permission from the Muslim Turks.
A short-lived Jewish plan to purchase the Holy Land.
The Montreal Daily Star – September 8, 1900. Full page.
Newspapers in those days, the Jews and even the Arabs used the terms “colonists”, “colonies” and “settlers” in a normal sense.
Minutes from a 1922 meeting between Jewish and Arab leaders, quoted in
UN Special Committee on Palestine – 1947, A_364 Add-2, p. 196. UN.org.
Only later did the terms become negative as part of the radicals' war against Zionism- and the propaganda campaign began mostly with the Soviet Union. More on Chronology J.
As other pages also demonstrate, Israel's renewal does not compare to the colonial pasts of the United States, Canada, Australia, the Arabian-Muslim Empires and others.
Gentile support
Until Zionism, Jews who kept the flame burning over the centuries hesitated to petition the world powers for backing of their cause, despite many people around the world who saw it as a matter of justice and despite Christians who believed in the Restoration. (Many Christians ultimately envisioned the conversion of Jews, but that didn’t affect the Jewish perspective.)
In the late 1600s and early 1700s, Denmark’s Holger Paulli, a wealthy slave merchant, found religion and “…proclaimed that it was his intention to establish a new Jewish kingdom in Palestine, and he addressed letters to several European rulers apprising them of this resolve and assuring them that Jerusalem would be rebuilt in 1720.” – Bible Portal.com.
“Rightful heirs of Palestine!”
France’s Napolean Bonaporte in a 1799 letter to the Jewish nation.
John Adams, former American President, in an 1819 letter to Mordecai M. Noah.
Rotunda, Founders Early Access, University of Virgina Press.
Similar from other Founding Fathers:
Article by Joseph Prud’homme.
After Egypt had controlled Syria-Palestine from 1831-1840, world powers raised a variety of plans for Palestine. In 1840, the Russian government wrote a letter to Prussia deriding the recent talk of a Jewish revival.
“There have even been a few individuals who have expressed the wish for Jews, of ancient and guilty origin who are dispersed in different countries, to attempt social and religious renewal in the city of Solomon.”
Notes on The Diplomatic History of The Jewish Question – 1919, p. 107.
By Lucien Wolf on Archive.org.
A British idea from 1840.
Britain’s Royal Commission Report (aka Peel) – 1937, page 14. Archive.org.
In 1842, Britain’s Colonel Charles Henry Churchill, who served as a consul in Ottoman Syria, drafted a political plan for the reestablishment of a Jewish state. He based it partly on the shock of an 1840 blood libel against Jews in Damascus. (This chapter from a book in 1885 has the detailed horror story.)
The plan started with a letter to the philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore.
Wolf, p. 119.
In 1864, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, an influential English Particular Baptist preacher, spoke about Restoration of the Jews.
More: See the third and fourth paragraphs of this Fathom article.
The following are after 1916, but make the same point. The victorious WWI Allies spoke of a new era where small nations would have self-determination. The Jews were a small nation. A low percentage of Arabs in Palestine saw themselves as a small part of a large nation (page #2)..
Washington Evening Star – August 17, 1919. Full page.
Archbishop of Mount Sinai, Poriphyrus II of the Greek Catholic Church, and head of the vast majority of Christians in Palestine.
Britain’s White Paper – 1922, page 19. Wikimedia.
The Jewish Home was by right, not sufferance.
American President Woodrow Wilson.
The Times (London) – September 7, 1918. Full page.
Town and Country Journal (Australia) – June 12, 1918. Full page.
The Times (London) – February 7, 1919. Full page.
Amongst other things, the article discusses Jewish-Arab history.
The British position for the formation of the League of Nations.
The Daily Telegraph – February 25, 1918. Full page.
The New Europe, quoted in Literary Digest – June 23, 1917. Full page.
Similar:
New York Times – September 7, 1918. Clip, full page.
British MP in The Daily Telegraph – Nov. 18, 1930. Clip, full page.
In the world of antiquities and artifacts, a movement has been under way since around 2015 where museums and governments have voluntarily returned items that were acquired illegally, as during wartime. The Holy Land for the Jews was a similar sentiment.
Many Arabs viewed Zionism favourably and that’s covered on Chronology D, along with detractors.
Indigenous and Genetics
Jews are an Indigenous People, which is why many others, including Native Americans, support Israel.
The United Nations describes the term as “Indigenous Peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.“
Genetic studies have supported history. From the 2010 analysis titled Abraham’s Children in the Genome Era:
- “Here, genome-wide analysis of seven Jewish groups (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek, and Ashkenazi) and comparison with non-Jewish groups demonstrated distinctive Jewish population clusters, each with shared Middle Eastern ancestry…” From the Abstract.
- “In this study, Jewish populations from the major Jewish Diaspora groups—Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi—formed a distinctive population cluster by PCA analysis…” From the Discussion paragraph.
These also dispel the falsehood about Ashkenazi Jews descending from Turkish Khazar converts: Here’s another that refutes it and check the very end of Discussion on a third.
Of all the ancient peoples who inhabited the land, such as the Canaanites and Moabites, today only the Jews remain. More: Tablet Magazine and Times of Israel.
Every Jewish person is a descendant of someone who lived in the original Kingdom of Israel (except for converts, naturally).
Condition of the land
Some pro-Israel outlets go too far in portraying Palestine of old as completely desolate and pro-Palestinian voices go too far in saying the Jews received an established country.
This is the world’s most battle-weary land.
The Immovable East – Studies of the People and Customs of Palestine – 1913
by Philip J Baldensperger. Page xvii, Archive.org.
Encyclopedia Americana 1922 Vol. 21, p. 200 (226 of file) – loc.gov.
There were diseases, notably malaria, that ravaged the territory.
Peel, p. 310.
(“Country” often refers to a geographical area, not a state.)
A Survey of Palestine Volume II- 1945-46, page 162. Archive.org (login).
Liverpool Mercury (UK) – September 19, 1865. Full page.
In the 1800s, there was organized life in about a dozen towns, like Jerusalem, Hebron, Acre/Akko, etc. The Christians were generally better off than the Muslims.
Charles Warren’s Survey of Western Palestine – 1884, p.465. Archive.org.
The status before World War I. Peel, p. 208.
Tristram, p. 137. (“Shechem” is the Hebrew name.)
Similar: Glass-making in Hebron (Biblical Researches in Palestine).
Going back to the 1700s, Acre became a major cotton hub between Europe and Syria. It then withered and reverted to a fishing village in the mid-1800s.
Thomas Philipp‘s The Rise and Fall of Acre – 1990, page 1. Persée or pdf.
Philipp's work is also an example of historical revisionism that swept Western academia beginning in the 1990s. A lengthier version was published in 2002 and given a new title of "Acre: The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian City".
Egypt’s control from 1831-1840 brought improvements, but they didn’t last. Outside the main areas and Palestine was indeed a mostly-desolate wasteland, which included primitive villages.
The Innocents Abroad – 1869. P. 358, full; p. 289, full. Archive.org.
American writer Mark Twain wrote about his travels to the area.
(He said everyone in the Old City of Jerusalem was poor and sickly.)
Great Britain and Palestine 1915-1945: Info Papers No. 20, p. 30. Archive.
Tristram, p. 490.
Warren, p. 465.
Similar: New York Times – June 9, 1918. (Use Reader View.)
The Jews were seen as Palestine’s saviours.
The Guardian (UK) – September 19, 1911. Full page.
The British head of the Agricultural Ministry after visiting Palestine.
Tristram, p. 490.
Baltimore Sun (USA) – June 19, 1891. Full page.
Thus, understand what it was like for the desperate Zionists to see the potential in Southern Syria and Palestine. Their homeland had never been an independent entity to the Muslims living in it; its small number of Arabs were an array of tribes and clans who were mostly peasants and at least semi-nomadic; the Arab nation had vast amounts of land in the Middle East; Palestine was a largely desolate, malaria-filled territory controlled by the Turks; many people around the world supported the Jewish revival; and there was safe transportation to make it possible.
The Jews didn’t steal land
They purchased a lot- from Arabs.
The Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini’s interview with Sir Laurie Hammond for the Royal Commission in 1937. This copy from a CIA file in 1943, Archive.org.
The Mufti- the extremist responsible for nearly all the violence in those days and who accused the Jews of theft- acknowledged the lie.
(Not all interviews and testimonies were included in the published report.)
A smaller percentage of land was purchased from churches and foreign entities. The smallest amount, under 10%, was bought from fellahin. On top of high prices, the Jews usually paid extra to assist tenants when they had to move.
Washington Evening Star – 1925, page 36. Full page.
The Land Problem As a Factor article by Y. Porath , part of The Palestinians and the Middle East Conflict: An International Conference – 1976.
P. 515. Archive.org. (See further down for more about this source.)
Local Arabs sold so much land that the British didn’t take seriously the complaints by some leaders.
Ibid., p. 514. Full page.
In the early 1900s, Jews bought land in Tiberias and the Arab seller moved many of the Algerian settlers to Syria where he owned other property.
Rural Arab Demography and Early Jewish Settlement in Palestine – 2011.
By David Grossman, then a Professor of Geography at Bar-Ilan University.
Page 66, full page. The book.
Peel, p. 242.
Most of the land purchased was uninhabited and undeveloped.
Peel, p. 238.
In 1937, the Arabs had six times more cultivable land than the Jews.
From the Sursock website, the Christian Arab dynastic family that sold much land to Zionists:
Jews purchased 200,000 dunams (more than 49,000 acres) from the wealthy family of Christian Arabs from Beirut (the Sursock family). Included in the purchase were 22 villages. …and bought from Ottoman landlords much of the land which now makes up present-day Israel.
18,000 acres of the Golan Heights were purchased in 1894. Five years later, the Turks seized it and expelled the Jewish residents.
Aish, CAMERA, Honest Reporting.
Also, a search reveals how mainstream outlets avoid the topic.
Unfortunately, to appease the extremists, the Sursock website perpetuates the exaggeration about Arab tenants becoming landless due to new Jewish owners.
Peel, p. 241.
- Through 1935, the British received 3,217 applications from Arabs having trouble finding new land or domiciles- out of a population that was close to 1 million.
Ibid., p. 240.
- The Arabs’ own problems were projected onto the Jews, which has been a consistent feature of the conflict. Before and during Zionism, Arabs were displaced by Turkish abuse and neglect, indebtedness to the effendi, a poor work ethic and violence.
Washington Evening Star – August 17, 1919. Full page.
Peasant Life in The Holy Land by Rev. C.T. Wilson – 1906, p. 5. Archive..
Great Britain and Palestine 1915-1945 Information Papers No. 20, p. 30.
(Some of the barrenness was out of their control.)
Porath, p. 513. Full page, Archive.
Peel, p. 241.
The Report accepted this point made by the Jewish Dr. Ruppin, who also discussed efforts to assist the Arabs.
Orange farming experienced a boom and then variables in the citrus market caused hardship for many Arabs (Porath, p. 513).
Finn, p. 244.
Trsitram., p. 107.
A major factor in the barrenness of the land, including the wider Fertile Crescent, goes back to the 17th century when Bedouin raids pushed the fellahin out of certain areas.
Diplomat Sir Alec Kirkbride in his A Crackle of Thorns – 1956, p. 20. Archive.org.
Concerning the early 1920s.
Concerning inhabitants who moved within Palestine until the early 1900s.
Rural Arab Demography and Early Jewish Settlement in Palestine – 2011.
By David Grossman, then a Professor of Geography at Bar-Ilan University.
Page 44, full page. The book.
Similarly-
Peel., p. 242.
- Finally, the natural way of life around the world sees some tenants vacate a property when it is sold. Neighbourhoods, towns, cities and countries have changed demographics throughout history.
When complaints failed to prevent Arabs from selling land, leaders used pressure tactics and other means that proved successful, but created the misconception of mass eviction.
Porath, p. 521. Full page, Archive.
The tactics bled into the Arab Revolt that began in 1936. Not only were the Muslims largely responsible for the economic frustrations behind the Revolt (it was also about British rule and Zionism), the violence induced more Arabs to sell land.
Porath, p. 514.
This has been a constant: Violence from the Muslim radicals makes things worse.
Click for more about Y. Porath and the source.
Yehoshua Porath was a moderate-liberal Israeli historian and professor. His article is titled The Land Problem As a Factor and the full title of the 1976 book it’s in is The Palestinians and The Middle East Conflict: An International Conference Held at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Haifa.
While we hope to get his original sources (from pages 537-540) that are mostly in the British Archives and Arabic newspapers, we’re confident with his professionalism that is measurable by the absence of complaints against his article. Parts have appeared in many other publications, and many other authors and scholars quote the same sources.
For later articles on Arabs who sold land to Jews, with British and Arabic sources:
Center for Israel Education pdf.
Alex Grobman on ResearchGate.
Palestinian Self-Betrayal (pdf) by Efraim Karsh.
Another myth about the purchases is that the Jews bought 6% of Palestine and, therefore, the remaining 94% belonged to the Arabs. No. Most people say the Jews bought 28%; regardless, a large majority of land, such as arid plots between villages and the Negev desert to the south, was either not privately owned or de-facto owned by the Ottoman rulers. With World War I, the British became the new rulers and they inherited such property.
Britain’s Mandate for Palestine, endorsed by the League of Nations, encouraged Jewish settlement on state and waste lands.
Article VI (page 3)- 1922. PDF.
After purchasing empty or undeveloped lots, the Jews proceeded to establish villages in other areas (mostly in what became their side of the 1937 Partition Plan). It was also done with the foresight that the British might impose fixed borders for the “National Home” and the Zionists didn’t want to be constrained by a tiny domain. Despite the Mandate explicitly allowing it, some of the anti-Jewish Brits painted it in a negative light.
Before 1948, the Zionists grew their land holdings strictly through purchases. See Page #4 for the 1948 War when Israel justifiably seized property and her borders crossed the Partition Plan lines, and see Page #6 for her legal capture of territories in 1967.
Refutation: The 1930 Hope Simpson Report had misleading aspects that contributed to the exaggerations of landless Arabs and the lack of land. The 1937 Peel Report corrected the points, as with the above clips, so anyone who quotes Hope Simpson over Peel is displaying ignorance or bias.
The Zionists transformed their fields
Hard work, capital investments and modern techniques turned empty, swampy lands into an oasis.
Events from 1913. Peel., p. 47. Full page.
Peel., p. 41. Full page,
Baltimore Sun (USA) – June 19, 1891. Full page.
The Palestine Problem Today; Israel and its Neighbors – 1953, p. 14, Archive.
Carl Hermann Voss, Chairman of the American Christian Palestine Committee.
Houston Post – January 27, 1918. Full page.
Similar:
The Times (London) – March 30, 1918. Page.
New York Times – June 9, 1918. Page.
More:
An article about property rights and displaced Jews.
Rebuttal: The people who later favoured Partition and the Two-State Solution based it partially on these facts. How could the Muslims- who were not even the rulers- deserve sovereignty over areas that were long uninhabited and that the Jews purchased and developed?
Arabs who enjoyed Zionism
Washington Evening Star – August 17, 1919. Full page.
Houston Post – January 27, 1918. Full page.
Peel, p. 241.
While we’re at it-
Tristram, p. 585.
Relations between Muslims and Jews
The point of mentioning the topic here is to add another reason as to why the Zionist leaders hoped for independence as opposed to, say, a province within Syria. They didn’t want to leave their security to any other group. While for many years some aspired to being in the British Commonwealth, it was harder to imagine a happy ending as a minority under Muslim rule.
In general
A popular notion about the old days is that Jews in Muslim domains had a better life compared to those in Christian Europe. That’s true as a comparison, but it muddles the picture. The simple reality is that both had positive periods and both had persecutions and atrocities. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) after the rise of Islam, Jews and Christians were respected as “People of the Book”, though considered lower in class to Muslims. In many jurisdictions, they were forced to pay a special tax as a constant reminder of being dhimmis. People of other faiths or no faith were even lower and called infidels.
Whenever a Jew or Christian contravened a law or disrespected Islam or the Muslim chieftan- even unintentionally, slightly or merely suspected of it- there were harsh consequences that often enveloped more than just the perpetrator.
Chicago Daily Tribune – September 9, 1903. Full page.
Indianapolis Journal (USA) – October 4, 1903. Full page.
The article concerned the massacre of 50,000 Christians in Macedonia by the Muslim Turks and gave the perspective of an educated Muslim from Constantinople.
The article shows the double-edged sword of Islam: obey our particular sensibilities or else. That some Muslims see themselves as Judge, Jury and Executioner of other people has its roots in the belief that Islam is the last, true religion and that Jews and Christians broke their covenants with God. (This also explains why there was much Christian violence towards Jews until the mid-1900s.)
The first iteration of Islam was designed to attract Jews in Muhammed’s base of Mecca and Medina, as with a call to face Jerusalem for prayers. However, nearly all Jews (and most other people at first) did not accept Muhammed as a prophet because, for one thing, the period of prophecy had ended a thousand years earlier. Those who did not convert were murdered. And so the Koran became laced with antisemitism.
With that foundation, it should be no surprise to learn of the many massacres, pogroms, and acts of discrimination inflicted on Jews in MENA over the centuries.
JewishWebsite.com has an incomplete list and doesn’t record the countless acts against individuals. An Aish article has insights and details.
In Palestine
Many people stress that Arabs and Jews had good relations in the old days and that is true to an extent. What they leave out is the dark context and the many examples of violence and discrimination.
Finn, p. 129.
Jews were extorted in various ways. Ibid., pages 118-119.
Ibid., p. 127.
Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine 1840-61- 1968, p. 187 on Archive.
(Needs login. As with just a few Jewish writers, this is an exception as he elaborates what others like Finn wrote. Also, some of his sources are Arabic and Gentile.)
Ibid., p. 187.
Ibid., p. 186.
Tristram, p. 393.
Also see p. 177 for evolving attitude towards Christians.
A letter from a Jew in Palestine to Sir Moses Montefiore about the time before Egypt’s conquest of Palestine and Syria. Quoted in
Agricultural land in Palestine: Letters to Sir Moses Montefiore, 1839.
By Ruth Kark in 1988. Page 215 on ResearchGate.
Egypt’s conquest of the region by Muhammed Ali was brief- 1931-1940- but brought reforms that gradually improved things for Christians and Jews.
Finn, p. 201.
They were followed in later decades by other enactments influenced by European governments. The locals did not want things to change, as these clips show. By the early 1900s, the situation had ameliorated- not that it became ideal- and the recent past and the double-edged nature of some Muslims were constant clouds over daily life.
These clips refute a line from the 1920 Palin Report that wrote, "No serious attack on the Jewish population is recorded (emphasis added) since the time of Ibrahim Pasha in 1840." Another line said, "...lived together in a state of complete amity." There were a small number of Jews in the old days so amity was easy.
How the Muslims viewed Jews. Palin. p. 10.
(More about the Report on Chronology D.)
That was the experience for Jews and Christians. The land was also rife with a culture of vengeance and tribal violence.
Finn (Stirring), p. 244.
Byeways in Palestine by James Finn – 1872. Page 413 on Archive.org.
Ottoman Reform, page 8. More on p. 9.
Baldensperger, p. 115.
Mr. Baldensperger made the mistake of writing that the Hebrew Bible endorses revenge. Four passages explicitly forbid it and "eye for an eye" refers to compensation.
Rebuttal: Many Muslim websites and voices perpetuate a negative attitude towards Jews (and Christians) by saying that the larger population of Muslims and greater amount of land under their control are proof that God favours them. The point is meaningless since Judaism is not about conquering new countries and doesn't seek converts.
The Jewish perspective of Arabs
A few individual Zionists in the early years said insensitive things that are still held up by the propagandists today as “proof” of Jewish malfeasance. Like Israel Zangwill who saw Palestine and the Jews as “A land without a people, a people without a land.”
Here is what the vast majority of Jews believed, as espoused by the future Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion:
“We knew that hundreds of thousands of Arabs lived in the land and were connected to its land. And out of Zionist and socialist recognition, we knew how to appreciate and respect the rights of these residents… we insisted on our duty to meet the Arab residents of the country, a meeting‑of brothers bound together by the fate of their lives and their future in this country.“
Samuel’s Account in We And Our Neighbours – 1925.
The original is in Hebrew; Google translated version (9th par. from end).
“…and there is no doubt that the Arab people in Palestine have the right to self-determination. … Freedom of self-determination should not be taken away from Arabs for fear that it might make our work more difficult.”
However…
“The Arabs, as residents of this land, have the full right to enjoy Palestine, but they do not have the right, as owners of private property, to forbid us from enjoying the land. … But [self-determination] does not intend to make them masters of things that they did not create and that are not the fruit of their labor. They have no power to determine our right to exist, to work, to settle on the land, as long as we do so not at their expense but by the sweat of our brow.”
Foreign Policy of the Hebrew People in We And Our Neighbours – 1925.
The original Hebrew; Google translation (around the middle of the page).
- To reach a wide audience, Theodr Herzl wrote a utopian novel that was based on co-existence with the Arabs: Old New Land- translated from Altneuland – 1920, Archive.org.
Next: Chronology D: World War I – 1922. Or Home for the top issues.