Why do Arabs fail to understand the unique and special connection Jews have to the land of Israel Eretz Yisrael ?
Many Christian and Muslim Palestinian Arabs find it difficult to understand the “unique and special connection” many Zionists claim to have for Palestine for the following reasons:
1- Since Zionism, as an ideology, evolved mainly in response to the rise of European nationalism and anti-Semitism in the late 19th century, especially in Tsarist Russian ruled Poland, Latvia, and Ukraine, and in France during the Dreyfus affair, the question which begs to be posed: Is there a connection between Tsarist Russia’s pogroms (or the Nazi holocaust) and the “unique and special connection” many Zionist Jews claim to have to “Eretz Yisrael”?
2- Since “Eretz Yisrael” historically spanned the borders of the occupied West Bank (inclusive of occupied East Jerusalem), western parts of Jordan, the occupied Golan Heights, the Sinai peninsula, southern Lebanon, and southern Syria, does that imply that: Israel must never relinquish “Jewish sovereignty” over the occupied West Bank, the occupied Golan Heights, and the liberated southern Lebanon? Israel must reoccupy and reinvade southern Lebanon? Israel eventually must nullify the peace treaties it has signed with Egypt and Jordan since “Eretz Yisrael’s” borders span some of Egypt’s and Jordan’s borders?
3- Let’s assume that the above arguments are nonsense to the average Zionist, then: What makes this “unique and special connection” different from the one that German, Polish, Greek, Italian, Egyptian, … etc. Christians had towards Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem? Ironically, once upon a time the Catholic Christians felt a similar “unique and special connection” to “Eretz Yisrael”, and we all know how that turned out to be! Why must this “unique and special connection” imply Palestinian dispossession? Why cannot this “unique and especial connection” continue to flourish without “transferring” the Palestinian people out of their homes, farms, and business? Why Christians’ “unique and special connections” to “Eretz Yisrael” flourished without Palestinians being “transferred” or dispossessed?
4- Again, assuming that the above arguments are still nonsense to the average Zionist, then: Would you advocate perpetrating war crimes (such as massive ethnic cleansing, dispossession, massacres or even committing genocides) against non-Jews to make “Eretz Yisrael” a country under “Jewish control”? In Biblical times, Israelites’ conquest of Jericho contained many documented cases of mass killings and looting, could such Biblical events be used as a precedent to “redeem Eretz Yisrael” from the “gentiles”? How do you know where, when, and how to draw the line?
There is no question of the fact that many Jews do feel a “unique and special connection” toward “Eretz Yisrael”, which I neither seek to diminish nor nullify. However, to claim that this “connection” is stronger, different, or even more divine than the way Muslims and Christians feel toward Palestine, is nothing but a false claim. This fact was very well articulated by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the father of the Israeli political Right, in 1923. He wrote:
“They [Palestinians] look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true favor that Aztecs looked upon Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie. Palestine will remain for the Palestinians not a borderland, but their birthplace, the center and basis of their own national existence.”(Righteous Victims p.36)
The hard truth that Zionists refuse to contemplate is that Zionism evolved from European anti-Semitism, and it had little to do with the Biblical “connection” many Zionists claim to have to Palestine. As with its predecessor, the Christian Crusade, the Old Testament is being used to confuse and distract attention from the core issues of the Palestinian-Israeli “conflict”. It’s tragic that often the words of God are used to justify perpetrating war crimes against others.