In the 1980s, the so-called new historians emerged in Israel, three historians, who carefully examined the available material about the origins of the state of Israel and drew their conclusions from it. These three were Benny Morris, Ilan Pappé and Avi Shlaim.
The latter is obliged to give interviews to combat misinformation. In one of them, Avi Shlaim says at the end that there is a lot of misinformation in the West. He sees it as his duty to combat misinformation.
It appears that the US President has discovered that the Prime Minister of Israel cannot be trusted when it comes to making deals. This makes it clear that politicians lack human knowledge and factual knowledge. Already at the beginning of the current war, the Prime Minister of Israel referred to the Hebrew Bible, 1 Samuel 15.3, which calls for genocide against the Amalekites, descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob. Amalek was the grandson of Esau. The Palestinians are seen as descendants of the Amalekites.
It has claimed the lives of more than 30,000 Palestinians and injured more than 70,000, mostly women and children, before Western politicians realized this.
It seems to me that there is a lot of work here for the International Criminal Court.
It is not surprising that South Africa has brought the case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. I'm following in his footsteps.
The war in Gaza has been keeping us busy for months. But how can it be understood? I want to try to give some insight into this.
I'll start with the 1880s. A wave of nationalism swept across Europe. Nationalism is generally bad for minorities such as Jews. They were forced to flee their native country. But where could they go?
Palestine was one possibility, bearing in mind the age-old greeting among each other: see you next year in Jerusalem.
The name Palestine was assigned to the Holy Land by the Roman rulers after the Jewish revolt against Roman rule in the 2nd century AD and was derived from the population group the Philistines.
In 1896, the Austrian Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl published a book,
called he jewish State, in which he argued for a separate Jewish state in order to have a place where it would be safe for Jews. In addition to Argentina and Uganda, his eye fell on Palestine. A year later he organized the first Zionist congress in Basel. This is generally seen as the beginning of Zionism. Zion is one of the hills of Jerusalem.
This Zionism was secular in nature, bearing in mind the classical Jewish idea that a state of Israel could only be restored when the Messiah had come. Not before.
An intermediate step is the secret Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916, in which France and England divided the sphere of influence in the Middle East. This was preceded by the promise in 1915 to Husain Ibn Ali, the Sherif of Mecca of an independent Arab kingdom if they rebelled against the Ottomans. This promise was not kept.
Then on November 2, 1917 came the famous Balfour Declaration. It now appears that the then Prime Minister of England, David Loyd George, was the driving force behind this statement. I heard this from Avi Shlaim, who said this in an interview. He is married to the great-granddaughter of this prime minister. His idea was that Jews constituted a hidden global financial power. He wanted England to benefit from this. This was a classic anti-Jewish attitude.
In 1922, the Balfour Declaration became part of the League of Nations for the mandate area and therefore an official international document.
From 1926 onwards, Jews began to buy up plots of land in Palestine and expel the existing population. Because of their centuries of experience with anti-Jewish sentiment in Christian Europe, they viewed every non-Jew as a potential threat.
In line with this, David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, wrote in 1937 in a letter to his son, who was studying in England, that his aim was to obtain a piece of Palestine and expand from it: the settlements.
An exception was the relationship between the Palestinian village of Meisir and the kibbutz Metzer. When the first Jews arrived at the village of Meisir, they were received as usual by the Palestinians and helped them establish their kibbutz. Their relationship is good.
Critical Jews are labeled as self-hating Jews. Former Foreign Minister Abba Eban coined this term. This shows that there was a growing way of thinking in Israel to exclude people, especially the Palestinians.
After the establishment of the state of Israel, the Jews were faced with the task of rebuilding the country after the expulsion of local Palestinians. But there was a lack of sufficient manpower. Now there were many Arab Jews living in Egypt and Iraq, among others, who were well established there and were part of the local society. To persuade them to come to Israel, terrorist attacks were committed in these countries, organized by Israel's secret service. There were four attacks in Iraq in 1950/1 and one failed in a Cairo cinema in 1954. The Jewish historian, Avi Shlaim, came to Israel from Baghdad as a 5-year-old child. He was originally an Arab Jew. He had to shed his Arab identity. This applied to all Arab Jews. You can hear his story via the link https://youtu.be/iNg93bLJL18. It takes almost 100 minutes. It is a first-hand testimony. He tells another story of what is called the Naqba, the catastrophe for the Palestinians. They were forced to leave their homes. This included King Abdallah of Jordan was in cahoots with the Zonists and Jordan received the West Bank as a reward: the Jordanian occupation, as I heard the director of the YWCA in East Jerusalem put it in 2001.
The Jewish historian Ilan Pappé wrote a book about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, published in 2006. Subsequently, it became known that on October 13, 2023 the Israeli government published a note stating that the intention is to expel the population of Gaza to North Sinai in the face of resistance from Egypt: a new ethnic cleansing.
A turning point is 1967 with the Six-Day War. Israel had started this war. My late friend Clement Leibovitz studied at the Technion in Haifa. When he was about to graduate, he was told that he could only graduate if he signed a letter addressed to Time stating that Egypt, his native country, had started the war in 1967. According to him this was not true and he refused to sign. He failed.
A comrade told him that according to the statutes of the Technion he was entitled to an oral re-examination. He applied for that. There were also other scholars and he succeeded. He moved to Canada. He told me this personally.
After conquering the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights, Israel began building settlements against international law.
One factor that Israel is strongly focusing on is creating images through propaganda. This is reflected in the image surrounding Hamas by labeling it as a terrorist organization. On a closer look things are different. Hamas was founded at the beginning of the first Intifada on December 9, 1987 with the help of Israel, which wanted to have a counterweight to Fatah. Since Fatah is a secular organization, the counterbalance had to be religious, just as Israel has the division between religious and secular Jews.
Fatah leader Yasser Arafat died under obscure circumstances on November 11, 2004 and was buried the next day in Ramallah.
On January 9, 2005, Mahmoud Abbas was elected his successor. The Palestinians made this choice because Israel and the US wanted this, I was told by a Palestinian friend. They wanted to see if he could get something done for them. These two countries had already forced Abbas to become prime minister to politically curb Yasser Arafat. The US does not have this feature.
Elections for the Legislative Council of Palestine were held a year later, on January 25. Since Abbas had achieved nothing, as usual in a democracy, the opposition became the big winner, Hamas. The observers present concluded that the elections had been conducted regularly. It was the first democratic election in the Arab world, but the result was against the wishes of the US and Israel.
The US has more often suffered from this, such as in 1953 in Iran, in 1954 in Guatemala and in 1970 in Chile, with all the consequences for the populations of those countries.
Although Hamas had won an absolute majority, it wanted to form a coalition with Fatah, but Fatah refused. It should play second fiddle. Hamas wanted this because Fatah had supplied the president.
Under pressure from Saudi Arabia, there came a government of national unity on February 8, 2007 in Mecca. This coalition of Hamas and Fatah did not last long.
On Thursday, June 7, 2007, the front page of the Jerusalem Post reported that Israel wanted to deliver 4,000 Kalshnikovs and millions of bullets to Fatah in Gaza. Hamas expelled the leader of Fatah in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan, from Gaza. Strictly speaking, this was not a coup, but Hamas actually prevented a coup.
What followed were skirmishes between Hamas and Israel.
Secret negotiations took place between Hamas and Israel in Switzerland, which culminated in a six-month ceasefire starting on June 18, 2008. The intention was to use this time to establish a long-term ceasefire called Hudna, lasting 10 years. to take. This time should be used for a final settlement.
Mahmoud Abbas was aware of this and realized that his role and that of Fatah would have been played out. He therefore announced the negotiations. Since Israel does not negotiate with “terrorists”, this marked the end of the negotiations. Hamas nevertheless adhered to the agreed six-month ceasefire, but Israel did not. On November 5, 2008, five Palestinians were killed in Gaza. This effectively meant the end of the armistice.
On December 27, Israel's war against Gaza began. The war ended on January 18, 2009. More wars followed with varying numbers of Palestinian fatalities and destruction, which Israel never paid for to restore homes in Gaza. The US and the EU, among others, paid for this.
The Israeli government likes to pretend that all Jews support it. This is not the case. It was significant that at the beginning of the current war there was a demonstration of Jews for Peace at the entrance to the Capitol in Washington. South Africa has an organization with the slogan 'Jews for free Palestine', of which Kelly-Jo Bluen is a spokeswoman. The Netherlands has Another Jewish Sound. A quote from an article by the young Dutch Jew, Nicola Edelsztejn, who studies history in Nijmegen reads: “I know the past of the Jewish people and therefore I detest the present of the Palestinians.”
I am in contact with a Jewish woman who lives in New Mexico. She wrote me the following: “It has taken me years to DEPROGRAM and UNLEARN all the Zionist lies I was fed from early childhood...but to FIND printed information in this "FREE" country, prior to 2000 was nearly IMPOSSIBLE!.. the books were 'AWOL"...missing in action...disappeared.! Learning THAT was also part of my DEPROGRAMMING. I was punished by relatives by being ostracized and ignored these last 30 yrs of my life...but I still bloomed and grew by reading and studying and travel. I have been fortunate..especially as I read daily reports of our brothers and sisters in Gaza and of their ENORMOUS SUFFERING.”
AWOL is an acronym for “absent without leave [permission].
The English newspaper The Guardian contained an article about the American Palestinian Edward Said, who is a beacon for many. He was a professor at Columbia University in the US, and a prominent musician. His daughter Najla is quoted in this article:
“As Najla Said, the playwright, actor and daughter of Edward Said, explained: “My father always recognized Jewish suffering and advocated a way [for Palestinians and Israelis] to live together with equal rights, while still standing firm in his criticism of Israel. ”
It is known that Edward Said would hold a TV debate with Israel's then ambassador to the UN. That was Benjamin Netanyahu. The latter did not want him to sit in the same room with Edward Said or even in the same building with him. He feared being killed by him. This can only be understood as a deep-seated trauma, probably the death of his brother Jonathan during the raid on Entebbe, Uganda to end a hijacking in July 1976. He was the only one who died. See https://youtu.be/TZNGZMczS1o
A fascinating interview with Edward Said in 20 minutes can be found via the link https://youtu.be/pv4B6mooDMY
It is therefore fascinating, because he uses the first five minutes to talk calmly about his illness, leukemia, from which he would die on September 25, 2003, just when I moved from Heerlen to Bethlehem.
In Palestine the conservatory with several branches is named after him.
Edward Said is an antidote to demonizing Palestinians.
The West suffers from a chronic sense of guilt for centuries of anti-Jewish sentiment. It is apparently unable to reconcile with itself. Politicians in particular suffer from this, meaning they are unable to extinguish the flaring anti-Jewish sentiment.
The impact of the Shoah is visible in German pro-Israel politics.
What seems important to me is finding out how people experience themselves in society. Is there a feeling of being treated as inferior? The gap between government and citizens can play a role in this. This can lead to people transferring their unease to the Jews, especially because the government unquestioningly supports Israel, while people recognize themselves more in the Gazans.
On balance, I see the current war as an explosion from centuries of European Christian anti-Jewish sentiment, which has left deep wounds and is difficult to heal. Recognition of this background is a first step towards healing.
A corresponding topic is identity. Many people struggle with the question: Who am I? It is a question of what is my foundation. They feel threatened and can react aggressively, they think in contradictions. This does not promote peace.
Now it is frequently pointed out that Israel's right to defend itself. I'm putting a twist on this. Israel has the right to protect itself. The consequences are great. And first: the Palestinians also have the right to protect themselves. But what if Israel fails to exercise this right? But what if Israel fails to exercise this right on grounds of sexism? (Female soldiers saw dangerous activities in Gaza, reported them, but were not taken seriously. They were just women.) Are there other countries that should step in here? If so, why? And furthermore, are those other countries obliged to chillingly play a perversion of Santa Claus/Baba Noel by supplying deadly weapons that are used against civilians?
And furthermore: what to do if it is made impossible for the Palestinians to protect themselves? Who will step in here then?
It appears that the US President has discovered that the Prime Minister of Israel cannot be trusted when it comes to making deals. This makes it clear that politicians lack human knowledge and factual knowledge. Already at the beginning of the current war, the Prime Minister of Israel referred to the Hebrew Bible, 1 Samuel 15.3, which calls for genocide against the Amalekites, descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob. Amalek was the grandson of Esau. The Palestinians are seen as descendants of the Amalekites.
It has claimed the lives of more than 30,000 Palestinians and injured more than 70,000, mostly women and children, before Western politicians realized this.
It seems to me that there is a lot of work here for the International Criminal Court.
It is not surprising that South Africa has brought the case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. In 1997, Nelson Mandela, when he was president, said: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” He has great moral authority. But politicians pay little attention to moral authority, unfortunately. Talking about European or Western values is ostentatious nonsense.
The famous psychologist Alice Miller researched during her life the background of people, who derailed in their life. In an interview in November 2002, she said, that the most politicians at that time have mental problems except one: Michail Gorbatsjov, but he was no longer in charge. You can say they are immature.
The consequences of immaturity are serious: These include possessiveness, narcissism, refusal to acknowledge one's faults, disproportionate responses to frustrations, inability to control one's impulses, inability to avoid renunciations, agreements, to accept inherent in entering into a commitment, emotional blackmail and lying (to yourself and to others [Israel as the most moral army in the world]). These usually lead to manipulation and control.
The spiritual leader Thomas Merton wrote an essay titled: The root of war if fear, not of someone else but of themselves.
