The Rise of Islam - Mohammed reacted with anger when Jews refused to recognize him as the last of the prophets.

The Rise of Islam

   

Mohammed reacted with anger when Jews refused to recognize him as the last of the prophets.

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In the previous chapter, we discussed at length the Jewish impact on intellectual Rome prior to the advent of Christianity. Similarly, Jews living on the Arabian Peninsula impacted positively on their Arab neighbors.

During the days of Jewish clashes with the Roman Empire, Jews fled to areas outside the control of Rome and founded many towns and villages in Arabia. One very famous town, almost certainly founded by Jews, was Yathrib. Today Yathrib is better known as Medina and is considered Islam’s second holiest city (after Mecca).

As in Rome, the local Jews attracted significant numbers of converts to their way of life and many more admirers.

M. Hirsch Goldberg, in the Jewish Connection (p. 33), sums up the story before the early 600’s:

“In Arabia, whole tribes converted to Judaism, including two kinds of the Himyarites. French Bible critic Ernest Renan remarked that ‘only a hair’s breadth prevented all Arabia from becoming Jewish.’”

One of those impressed by the Jews’ uncompromising devotion to monotheism was a young trader named Mohammed ibn Abdallah.
In the early stages of his spiritual awakening, Mohammed came to be greatly impressed by the Jews.

Although his travels had exposed him to Christianity and he was clearly influenced by it, he found aspects of it troublesome—in particular, the doctrine of the Trinity did not seem strictly monotheistic in his eyes. He is recorded as having said:

  “Unbelievers are those that say, ‘Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary’ ... Unbelievers are those that say, ‘Allah is one of three.’ There is but one God. If they do not desist from so saying, those of them that disbelieve shall be sternly punished.” (Koran, Sura 5:71-73)

However, there is no doubt that in the early stages of his spiritual awakening, Mohammed came to be greatly impressed by the Jews. Writes S.D. Goiten in Jews and Arabs (pp. 58-59):

“The intrinsic values of the belief in one God, the creator of the world, the God of justice and mercy, before whom everyone high and low bears personal responsibility, came to Muhammad—as he never ceased to emphasize—from Israel.”

He clearly had some knowledge of the Torah as later he would quote Moses (though usually not accurately) more than one hundred times in the Koran, the record of his teachings which became the holy book of his newfound religion. Of the 25 prophets listed in the Koran, 19 are from Jewish scripture, and many ritual laws, as well as civil laws, of Islam parallel Judaism—circumcision and prohibition against eating pork, for example.

CHILDREN OF ISHMAEL

Mohammed believed the ancient tradition that the Arabs were the other children of Abraham - through the line of his son Ishmael by the Egyptian maidservant Hagar - and that they had forgotten the teachings of monotheism they had inherited ages ago. He saw his mission as bringing them back. Paul Johnson, in his History of the Jews (p. 167), explains:

  “What he [Mohammed] seems to have wished to do was to destroy the polytheistic paganism of the oasis culture by giving the Arabs Jewish ethical monotheism in a language they could understand and in terms adapted to their ways. He accepted the Jewish God and their prophets, the idea of fixed law embodied in scripture - the Koran being an Arabic substitute for the Bible - and the addition of an Oral Law applied in religious courts.”

There is no argument that the Arab world into which Mohammed was born was badly in need of moral values and social reform. The Mecca of his day was a central place of pagan worship. The Arab tribesmen of the region worshipped a pantheon of gods there, including Al-Lat, the sun goddess, and Al-Uzza, a goddess associated with the planet Venus, both of whom were daughters of the chief deity, known as Al-Ilah, (Allah) or “the God.”

In Mecca stands Kaaba, the shrine enclosing the famous black meteorite, a former site of pagan worship.

The Kaaba, the shrine enclosing the famous black meteorite which was worshipped in Mecca before Mohammed’s time, was also a site for an altar where blood sacrifices were offered to these and other gods.

The morality of the neighboring tribesmen could, charitably, be described as chaotic. Huston Smith, in his classic The Religions of Man, (p. 219) goes so far as to call the Arab society before the advent of Mohammed “barbaric.” Tribal loyalties were paramount; other than that, nothing served to mitigate the blood feuds, drunken brawls and orgies that the harsh life of the desert gave sway to.

MOHAMMED’S VISION

Mohammed was repelled by the cruel and crude reality around him. In the year 610, at the age of 40, he escaped to a desert cave where, according to Muslim tradition, he experienced a series of mystical visions, including revelations from the Angel Gabriel. He returned from the desert imbued with a spiritual mission to transform the pagan society around him.

Preaching an end to licentiousness and need for peace, justice and social responsibility, Muhammad advocated improving the lot of slaves, orphans, women and the poor, and replacing tribal loyalties with the fellowship of a new monotheistic faith - which he called Islam, meaning “surrender to God.” (One who submits is a Muslim.)

Islam, according to Mohammed, was built on five pillars:

• Faith in one God (“there is no God but Allah”)
 
• Prayer (five times a day)
 
• Charity (2.5% of one’s income)
 
• Pilgrimage to Mecca called Haj (once in a lifetime)
 
• Fasting (a fast lasting from dawn to dusk for 30 days during the month ofRamadan)

Another fundamental principle of Islam is Jihad. ( While most people think the term Jihad means holy war the actual meaning of Jihad is “struggle” and can be used to refer to both the internal struggle between good and evil that occurs with in all of us as well as external struggle between the world of the Muslim (dhar al Islam) and the world of the non-Muslim called the World of War (dhar al Hare). The earliest use of the term Jihad as mentioned in 7th century Islamic law codes (sharia) refers to external struggle against the non-Islamic world.) (1)

Initially, he attracted very few followers. After three years, Mohammed had barely forty converts. But, imbued with a passion that has been the hallmark of the truly great visionaries of the world, Mohammed would not give up. And, little by little, he built a steady following of committed loyalists.

The more followers he attracted, the more attention, and with it, the more hostility. The merchants of Mecca, whose livelihood depended on the pagan sites and rites of the city, weren’t going to be easily displaced. A murder plot was hatched, but Mohammed escaped just in the nick of time.

While persecution of the Muslims was mounting in Mecca, the city of Yithrab was experiencing problems of internal strife and a delegation decided that the fiery preacher from Mecca would be the man to bring order to chaos. After winning the pledge of city representatives to worship only Allah, Mohammed agreed to migrate. His journey to Yithrab in the year 622 CE, the year 1 of the Islamic calendar, was immortalized as theHegira.

Thus his life was saved and a new horizon opened for his teachings. It was in Yithrab—heretofore to be known as Medina, “the city of the prophet”—that Islam took hold in a major way.

Once he had made Medina his stronghold, Mohammed mobilized an army of 10,000 men and, in 630 CE, moved against Mecca, meaning to purify the Kaaba and turn it into a center of worship of the one God, Allah.

His success is legendary. Two years later, when he died all of Arabia was under Muslim control.

MOHAMMED AND THE JEWS

The one problem Mohammed had faced in Medina - and elsewhere - were the Jews, who were not prepared to accept his Arab version of Judaism. In the same way they had previously rejected Christianity, so too did they reject Islam.

It must be pointed out, however, that Jews had a lot less problems with Islam than they did with Christianity. Islam was purely monotheistic, whereas Christianity incorporated a lot of pagan mythology into itself. Islam did not claim that Mohammad was “god” or “son of God” or that God came in three parts. Islam followed many Jewish laws and customs, unlike Christianity which disavowed the law of the Torah in favor of faith in Jesus.

The most important agreement was that Abraham was the father of both the Jews and the Arabs.

The most important agreement was that Abraham was the father of both the Jews (through his son Isaac) and the Arabs (through his son Ishmael). This made the two peoples half-brothers. But the chief disagreement came on the issue whether Mohammed was indeed the last of the prophets to be sent by God and that his word was the final revelation. The Jews found the idea unthinkable since prophecy had end long before and the words of the Torah could never be superseded.

Their rejection was painful to Mohammed who reacted with hostility toward the Jews and took great pains to pointedly separate Islam from its Jewish roots. The holiest day of the week was changed to Friday; direction of prayers was changed from Jerusalem to Mecca; most of the Jewish dietary laws were excised from Islam with the exception of the slaughter rituals, prohibition on pork and consumption of blood.

Further, Mohammad maintained that the Jews had distorted their own Bible: Abraham did not attempt to sacrifice Isaac to God at Mount Moriah, one of the hills of Jerusalem; rather, Abraham took Ishmael to Mecca, where he offered to sacrifice him to Allah on the Black Stone of Kaaba.

If Jews had previously rebuffed Mohammed’s claims to prophecy, they now openly sneered at what they considered a complete fabrication. This only made things worse. Mohammed’s anger and curses against the Jews are recorded in the Koran:

• “And humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them, and they were visited with wrath from God.” (Sura 2:61)
• “Of all men you will certainly find the Jews ... to be the most intense in hatred of those who believe.” (Sura 5:85)
• “Vendors are they of error and are desirous that you go astray from the way ... But God has cursed them for their unbelief.” (Sura 4:48-49)

Mohammed’s anger toward the Jews was not just rhetoric. The period from 622 C.E. until Mohammed’s death in 632 C.E. was punctuated by periods of intense anti-Jewish violence as he systematically expelled, plundered and even slaughtered the Jewish tribes of Nadir, Khaybar and Banu Qurayza who lived in and around Mecca. Mohammed’s victories of the Jews are discussed in great length in Sura 59 of the Koran.

After Mohammed’s death some of his followers would interpret such statements as license to purge the world of the Jews. Other Muslims would concentrate more on the commonality of heritage and belief that Mohammed had also emphasized, and they would treat the Jews a bit better . (We will see how in future chapters of this series.)

JIHAD

At the time of Mohammed’s death in 632, Arabia was united and poised for jihad, the “holy war” or “holy struggle” to bring the world to Allah. Shortly, it moved with a fearsome power against the Byzantine and Persian empires.

What did that mean for the Jews?

Answers Rabbi Berel Wein in Echoes of Glory (p. 299):

  “Most Jewish historians (until the recent revisionist-historians) are convinced that the Byzantine Church would have attempted to eradicated Judaism totally if the Church itself had not been defeated and its plan for hegemony in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean basin thwarted by the rising tide of Islam. Thus the coming of Islam may be seen as a providential occurrence that allowed the Jews to slip between the cracks Islam made in Byzantine Church persecution. However, as is the case in all historic ‘gifts’ in Jewish history, the rise of Islam would prove to be only a mixed blessing for Israel.”

Jews were classified as ahl al-dhimma, “protected people,” and were allowed to live in Islamic countries without being forced to convert. But a whole code of law applied to them, most of it designed to set them apart, humiliate and emphasize their inferior status.

For example, a Jew could never have his head higher than a Muslim. So if a Jew was walking along, and a Muslim passed by, the Jew had to step into the gutter in deference to the Muslim’s superior status. A Jew could never testify against a Muslim in court (which basically meant there was no justice for Jews). A Jew could not have a house of worship that was higher than a mosque, which is why (for example) the Four Sephardic Synagogues in the Old City of Jerusalem are subterranean. It should be noted that throughout history some of these laws were not uniformly enforced, and there were periods of time when Jews living in Muslim countries were openly persecuted and others when they were treated very well.

Next we are going to look at one important Jewish community, which at least for a time, flourished under Muslim domination.

1. For a good explanation of the concept of Jihad see: Bernard Lewis, The Middle East-A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years.(New York, 1995), 233-8.

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#42 of 70 in the Aish.com Jewish History Series
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by  Ken Spiro
Posted in: Jewish History

Radical Islam not ALLAH is the root of evil - YJ Draiman

Radical Islam not ALLAH is the root of evil

This revised article is adapted from an Article by Dr. Azriel Carlebach which was published in the Israeli newspaper “Ma’ariv” on 7 October 1955.

Translated from Hebrew with Google translator, edited, modified substantially and completely re-written

“The source of the conflict between Israel and the Arabs is not borders, but the Islamic ideology. Arabs are members of Islam, and with it, according to the world views, you can not converse with it. With Islam you do not, and cannot, live side by side as neighbors in peace.”

The clear and simple truth is, that between the Islamic world and the culture of the Western world, there is not one common word, thus, there is not, will not, and cannot be any understanding.

This intention is not religion, because all religions can be good or bad. Rather, it depends what their believers will implement or neglect in its moral principles. The intention of Islam is its influence on social life and social services, on the sentiment of the world and the relationship with other human beings.

For fifty or sixty consecutive generations the Muslims have been educated and brought up in Islam to rape human nature: not to use the power of reason; and not wanting to utilize individual rights.  In fact, Islam, when exposed, will actually dim, darken, and further an undefined Allah. Leadership is strict and capricious, hidden, and sick. This is the essence of Islamic religions, demanding their followers not to question. A person who undertakes Islamic belief says: “Allah il Allah”, not because he is convinced of the idea, but because he has entrusted himself to a tyrant.

Such faith by its very nature may not be distributed with intellectual persuasion or guided by a moral beacon, which would require the work of mind and body. Rather, it demands to be distributed only by knuckle and physical force. Thus, there is a requirement of constant holy war against the un-believers in order to “bring them to the bosom of the true faith by force with the sword of al-Islam Allah the lover of blood”. The danger is largely never manifest by itself, but with a finger stuck to the trigger and a small bomb carried by the crazy individual that can destroy an entire physical and ideological sect.

The danger for the West against Islam is far greater than that of communism. The Communist ideology has a multiple rationalistic nuclei lacking in the Muslim religion. With Communism one can have dialogue based on the foundations of give and take because they take into account the harsh reality of measured forces, formulating demands, weighing and considering proposals by its benefits.

All these particulars do not exist in Islam. Muslims have never agreed on anything – will be whatever will be – even among themselves.  They can not bring anything to fruition – not just in matters of Israel.  The whole mighty Muslim world could not come to an agreement on one common postage stamp. Their responses to anything has no relevance to common sense. Their responses are calculated on emotion, transient and baseless.  You can talk about “business” with anyone, even with the devil, but not with Allah.

We created – and continue to create – inexcusable foolishness that cannot be forgiven.  We are not helping the world depicting Arabs that do not exist at all, and are only the fruits of our wishful imagination. Thus we are adding insult to injury when we distort the image and narrow the conflict as only a border dispute between Israel and its neighbors.  Above all, it does not correspond to reality. The issue of borders is not the real source of conflict; rather, the true source is the Islamic ideology.

If our neighbors were Westerners, for example Protestants, we would have for a long time been living in peace with them, just like the Norwegians and Swedes. Even if they were Catholics our relationship would be settled and we would get along like the French and English in Canada, and like many South American countries among themselves. However, here in Israel we have been trying for over fifty years in any and all ways possible to reach some kind of an agreement with the followers of Islam.  Yet, a solution has never even appeared on the horizon with even a shadow of hope because the essence of the problem does not lie with actions, facts and fears.  Rather, the problem lies only in the fact that Arabs are members of Islam. Thus, because they are Radical Muslims, as the world now knows, you cannot converse with them. It does not matter who the other party is and with what rightful claim; with Radical and extremist Islam you cannot live side by side in peace.

Consequently, presenting the dispute as a conflict between two similar people equips the Arabs-Muslim arsenal of an argument that is not theirs. If the argument with them is really political, then there are aspects to either side. Then we appear as if we came to a land that was completely Arabic, thus we conquered, occupied and put ourselves as a wedge between them and  through them, and we burdened them with refugees, and our army is a danger to them, etc. etc.  Is it possible that one can justify this or that party. For instance, in this presentation of a rational and political problem, it becomes understandable to the European minds to our detriment.

The Arabs-Muslims claim certain complaints that are accepted by World opinion under normal legal fight. However, even though reality proves no substance to such claims, it is the source of the hostile Worldly stance. All true political and social concepts are not in the real world of the Arabs-Muslims .

Conquest by the power of the sword, in their eyes, and the eyes of Radical Islam, is not at all an injustice. On the contrary, they believe it is a right and a crushing proof of eternal ownership.

The care for refugees and dispossessed brothers is not in the Islamic train of thought; Allah expelled them, Allah will take care of them. A Muslim politician has never been bothered or excited on aspects like this (unless calamity risked his personal status). Therefore, even without the occupation or the refugee problem, the Arabs would have opposed Israel with the same force and vengeance. Based on the criteria we are negotiating with Arab-Muslims, it seems to the World we are the savages who cloak ourselves in the gown of European justice. Thus, instead of alerting the people of the world, we anesthetize them.

This is the basis of our mistake, and in my humble opinion, the secret of our isolation and our failures:

that we, – though not crying about the sting of the stabbing into our flesh – teeter on the open mouth of the abyss in an effort for the peace of the world. We ask for bandages to bind the wounds from where we were bitten, and we do not warn: Here circling between all your feet, is a mad dog!!

Consider this, what if when Hitler came to power, we recognize and would say he was indeed an anti-Semite?  However, because he is the founder of a supposed wise and respected religion that we should not be concerned about him.  Rather, we should extend our hand to him for peace, and dare to resolve among ourselves any small private disagreements.  Then afterwards enter into a covenant of peace with him, and thus, help him in developing and promoting his teachings and to spread his influence.

We would be committing sin not only to our struggle for the existence of our country and the lives of our sons and daughters, we would also be sinners to the world as a whole if we ignore and hide the simple truth which resides in the heart of all of us, – including government officials when they announce and declare peace – which is: the enemy is the perverse ideology of Radical Islam.

The Radical Arab-Muslim is not only our enemy because we are residing here in Israel. He is our enemy even if we were sitting at the North Pole because the Radical Arab-Muslims and the ideology of Radical Islam is the enemy of all the free world. It is the enemy of all fertile minds, any kind of initiative, and any creative ideas. The Radical Arab-Muslim is the enemy of life for every Jew, every Christian, every non-Muslim, and every Muslim. Whatever is given in his hand, whether a sword of wood or a tank of steel, he will use to become a threat to all human beings.

The Radical Arab-Muslim has never contributed, and if history holds true, will never contribute anything which is good to this world.  He has not brought forth even one person who has led the world forward in any area of human existence. Without a doubt he is darkness; Radical Islam is the catalyst to all which is negative; he is the prison to 900 million people who are being tortured; he is the root, the essence and the obstacle to peace in the world. Therefore, as long as we do not make the effort to succeed to impart to the free world this knowledge, we will always be as the first victims for the lack of knowledge.

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And that our sages said, “All that adds – subtracts”

Mention that the original unmodified article was written in 1955.

Submitted, translated, edited, modified Substantially and re-written by: YJ Draiman

MAHMOUD ABBAS ARAFAT'S NEW PM BEHIND MUNICH OLYMPICS ATTACK? Terror mastermind says 'moderate' leader praised by Bush financed 1972 rampage killing 11 Israelis - Draiman

TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND

MAHMOUD ABBAS ARAFAT'S NEW PM BEHIND MUNICH OLYMPICS ATTACK?

Terror mastermind says 'moderate' leader praised by Bush financed 1972 rampage 

killing 11 Israelis

Published: 04/29/2003 at 1:00 AM

President Yasser Arafat’s newly appointed Palestinian Authority prime minister does not have the pristine past touted by his supporters, charges an Israeli civil rights group.

Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, provided financing for the terrorist attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, says Israeli attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Shurat Hadin – Israel Law Center.

Abu Mazen

In a letter to President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Darshan-Leitner called for an investigation into Abu Mazen’s role in the Sept. 5, 1972, attack, carried out by Arafat’s central Palestinian Liberation Organization faction Fatah.

The terrorist group, operating under the name “Black September,” sent a squad of armed Palestinians to attack dormitories housing the Israeli Olympic team. The gunmen murdered a coach and a member of the weightlifting team, then took nine other Israelis hostage. The Palestinians demanded they be transported to the Munich airport where a rescue attempt by German police failed, and all nine hostages were murdered.

Last week, President Bush praised Abu Mazen as “a man dedicated to peace,” indicating he would invite him to the White House for talks after his cabinet was installed. The Palestinian parliament meets today to confirm the new prime minister as head of a cabinet created under international pressure to curb Arafat’s powers as president.

Shurat Hadin claims it has contacts within the Palestinian Authority itself who point out the hypocrisy of Abu Mazen’s insistence he has never been involved in terrorism.

The Israeli group also notes the mastermind of the Munich attack, Mohammed Daoud Oudeh, or Abu Daoud, claims Abu Mazen provided the funds to carry out the Black September attack.

Member of Black September in 1972 Munich Olympics attack

Daoud made that charge in his 1999 French language memoir, “Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich,” and again in an interview last August with Don Yaeger of Sports Illustrated magazine.

Abu Daoud said he was angered by the dozens of Palestinian terrorists allowed to return to the Palestinian territories as a result of the Oslo process while he remained persona non grata to Israel and the United States. Abu Mazen, Daoud complained, is now considered “respectable” even though he also was involved in the Munich attack.

Abu Mazen, part of the Palestinian hierarchy for nearly four decades, has served as PLO executive committee chairman.

In his book Abu Daoud states:

“After Oslo in 1993, Abu Mazen went to the White House Rose Garden for a photo op with Arafat, President Bill Clinton and Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.

“Do you think that … would have been possible if the Israelis had known that Abu Mazen was the financier of our operation? I doubt it.”

In the Sports Illustrated interview, he added: “Today, the Bush Administration seeks a Palestinian negotiating partner ‘uncompromised by terror,’ yet last year Abu Mazen met in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell.”

Daoud also was interviewed about the Munich massacre for a film called “One Day in September,” produced by John Battsek and Arthur Cohn for Sony Pictures Classics. Director Kevin Macdonald said Abu Daoud admitted Black September was merely the cover name adopted by Fatah members when they wanted to carry out terrorist attacks.

The PLO operative recalled how Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas aka Abu Mazen both wished him luck and kissed him when he set about organizing the Munich attack.

The Shurat Hadin letter to President Bush said:

“Under your leadership the United States has declared that it will no longer conduct diplomacy with those tainted by terrorist pasts. It appears that the new Palestinian leader to which the United States and Israel are now pinning all their hopes, was also involved in murderous attacks perpetrated by the PLO’s Black September. Mahmoud Abbas aka Abu Mazen’s role in the brutal killing of the Israeli athletes and American citizen David Berger must also preclude his involvement in the negotiations between Israel and their Arab neighbors.”

Mahmoud Abbas aka Abu Mazen also has been criticized for a 1983 book in which he suggested the figure of 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust was “peddled” by the Jews. In “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement,” he said the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis to murder Jews in a plot to gain sympathy for creation of the state of Israel.

Nevertheless, as one of the PLO architects of the Oslo Accords, Mahmoud Abbas aka Abu Mazen is regarded by Europe and the United States as the best hope to lead the Palestinians to renewed negotiations, known as the “road map” to peace.

His supporters also point to statements he has made against the Palestinian armed struggle, or Intifada, as evidence of his moderate credentials. However, analysts, such as the Middle East Media Research Institute contend his position has been primarily pragmatic, based on strategic reasons. Mahmoud Abbas publicly supports terror and violence, honors terrorists and suicide bombers and issued monthly checks to the terrorists families.

The following series of maps were included to counter anti-Israel propaganda that used maps as well

The following series of maps were included to counter anti-Israel propaganda that used maps as well.  Those
maps were posted at Metronorth Stations and start with a map labeled Palestine which is gradually replaced more
and more by Israel.  One of the problems of these maps is they give the impression that a state of Arab Palestine existed
when it did not, and that the inhabitants were displaced to give way to a state of Israel.  The maps do not show that 
many of the original inhabitants of the region still live there and those Arabs living In Israel (outside of Judea and Samaria) 
are citizens.  Here are a set of maps that give a different perspective.
 
The first map shows Israel in Biblical Times.  Notice how it was on both sides of the Jordan River.  Currently the
Eastern part of Israel is occupied by Jordan and Syria. 


Since Biblical Times there have been numerous invaders of Israel who forced most of the Jewish population into exile.  During
the 1850s when the Turks controlled the area the entire land had a total population of about 250,000.  That means
that the vast majority of the inhabitants of the region today are recent immigrants. 
Mark Twain traveled through the region at that time and wrote:

 Stirring senses… occur in this [Jezreel] valley no more. There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent — not for thirty miles
 in either direction. There are two or three clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles,
hereabouts, and not see ten human beings...

Regarding the Galilee Mark Twain wrote:

These unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of bareness that never, never, never, do shake the glare from their harsh outlines…;
that melancholy ruin of Capernaum: this stupid village of Tiberias, slumbering under six funereal palms. … A desolation is here
that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. … We reached [Mount] Tabor safely. …
We never saw a human being on the whole route.

One of the reasons the area was so empty was that Palestinian Bedouin preyed on Palestinian Fellahin (farming peasants).
Many immigrants came seeking economic opportunity as the Jews cleared the malarial swamps, and made the desert bloom. 
Ladislas Farago in his book Palestine at the Crossroads (1937) wrote:

One always finds in Palestine Arabs who have been in the country only a few weeks or a few months...Since they are themselves strangers in a strange land, they are the loudest to cry: 'Out with the Jews!...Amongst them are to be found representatives of every Arab country: Arabs from Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Egypt, the Sudan and Iraq.

Many Muslims came to Palestine when the United Nations set up refugee camps which provided free food and shelter.
 


The British in order to get Arab support promised them land and cut out 3/4 of the Jewish National Home and
gave it to them.  There are many quotes of Arabs who stated that Jordan was Palestine but this fact is
forgotten today.



In order to It is important to put the Middle East conflict in perspective and the map below does that.

The Palestinian-Arab Country of Lies - Draiman

Guest Column: The Palestinian Country of Lies

by Reuven Berko

It is news to no one that throughout the negotiations with Israel, despite Islam's ban on lying, the Palestinians have consistently lied. Surah Al-Haj (Surah 22, verse 30) and Surah Al-Ghafir (Surah 40, verse 28) of the Qur'an, as well as many hadiths (the oral tradition attributed to Muhammad), strongly condemn lying for any reason. It is specifically considered an affront to Allah and Muhammad, and the liar will burn in hell. However, for Islamists, their beliefs provide a number of loopholes. For example, for an Islamist, one can lie to effect a compromise between disputing parties, to deceive an enemy, to make one's wife happy.

Thus, it is permissible to lie to the Jewish (and American) enemy, which is what the Palestinians negotiators have done time after time in the negotiations with Israel. These negotiators, even those conveniently hiding under the mantle of "secular," employ the fundamentalist moral code that dictates their actions. They have manipulated, avoided, evaded, denied, wiggled around facts and told outright lies regarding agreements already reached and their goals for future coexistence. For these believers in moral religious pragmatism, permission to lie in the negotiations is based on designating the Jew as the enemy of Allah and Islam, worthy only of death. For the Palestinian leadership, abetted by the Palestinian Authority's educational and religious systems, the Jew is religiously labeled not only the enemy because of the so-called "occupation of Palestine," but because of the ancient  Hadith that they invoke that states  that  Muslims will not be redeemed on Judgment Day unless the Jews on earth are killed. Therefore, for these radical believers, lying to the Jews if it leads to their final destruction is virtually a religious fiat.

Before he met with the American president last week, Mahmoud Abbas told Fatah's Revolutionary Council in Ramallah that he would not recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, would not waive the so-called "right of return" of the Palestinian refugees, and would not abandon the idea of Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine." An Abbas confidante and member of Fatah's Central Committee, appearing on official Palestinian Authority television, revealed the true Palestinian intentions for the Jews during that conference. Abbas Zaki promised that "Allah will gather all the Jews together so that the Palestinians can destroy them."

All the Palestinians' fabricated religious, moral and historical demands on the land of Israel and Jerusalem are based on Islam's permission to lie to the enemy, considered "legitimate" because their ultimate objective is to destroy Israel and establish "Palestine" on its ruins. No matter the current historical revisionism, honest Palestinian scholars know that there was never a Palestinian state in the land of Israel (or anywhere else); there was never a Palestinian people until Jews started populating the land; and nothing was ever promised to them in the Qur'an. When the United Nations called for a Jewish state and an adjacent Arab state in 1947, the Arabs rejected it.

Because of stunning defeats visited upon the Palestinians whenever they attempt to destroy Israel with violence and terrorism, they have decided instead to implement Arafat's "salami plan" and destroy Israel piecemeal through fraud and deception. To that end they have recruited the gullible West to do the work, if not for them, then with them. The Palestinian demand for the so-called "right of return" is one aspect of the plan: its objective is to swamp Israel demographically, thus destroying its Jewish character and making it possible to establish the Muslim "Palestine" on its ruins.

Unfortunately, through the United Nations, the Western world willingly collaborates with the Palestinians. It supports their outrageous claims and deliberately refuses to resolve the Palestinian issue. The "Palestinian refugee" project, directed primarily by UNRWA, has unprecedented support from the West.  Although the status of "refugee" is not supposed to be hereditary, the UN agencies still label the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the Arabs who fled in 1948 as "refugees" and funnel billions of dollars in aid to them through mechanisms established specifically for that purpose. That status allows the Palestinians to preserve indirectly the claims for "right of return" and helps motivate their murderous intention, if unstated by the more savvy spokesmen, to ultimately destroy Israel.

Nowhere in the world is there a project for refugees that even remotely resembles the Ponzi scheme the UN set up for the Palestinians. Not only does it shovel money to the "refugees," it also supports a myriad of corrupt – and totally unnecessary – UNRWA employees who perpetuate the hatred of all Jews. It is entirely possible that only the final collapse of the European economy can stop the corruption, because cold facts and logic clearly cannot stop this ingrained corruption.

The position of the Western countries regarding the Palestinian issue is perplexing. Throughout modern history, millions of refugees, including the Jews who survived the Holocaust or were expelled from the Arab countries, have adapted and integrated into the societies of their new countries without UN involvement. Catastrophes continue to occur around the world, refugees are slaughtered on a daily basis in terrorist attacks and hate crimes, women are raped and children flee and starve to death while the UN deals with the Palestinians. UN clerks devote their time to the descendants of the Arab refugees of 1948, although many of them have long since established themselves, unlike other refugees (in Africa, for example), in the Arab states among people with whom they share a culture, religion, language and history.

Western countries perpetuate the problem of the Palestinian refugees deliberately. Their motive is not love of the Palestinians, but rather to prevent the issue from being resolved. On the other hand, the Arab states do not want the Palestinian refugees anywhere near them, and until the Arab Spring they used the "liberation of Palestine" as a rallying cry to close ranks against the common "Zionist enemy." Recently, however, it has become apparent that the Arab masses no longer accept hatred of Israel as their common denominator and actively work to overthrow the corrupt Arab regimes.

Unfortunately, the leaders of the Arab world, as well as many European Union and other Western leaders have had no real intention of finding genuine solutions within the Arab states for the problems of the Palestinians. Instead, they have used the Palestinians to channel popular anger and unrest and as an excuse to wage campaigns against Israel and to divert popular anger against the ruling elites. Western leaders never admit it, but instead of demanding citizenship for the refugees in the Arab countries where they have settled, they deliberately enforce the status of "Palestinian refugees" and delude the Palestinians into assuming that they will eventually "return to Palestine." They know perfectly well that their policies encourage the Palestinians to cling to the vain hope that with Western support, at some time in the future they will "return" to Israel and destroy it with waves of refugees andmujahideen terrorism.

The West pays the UN and other welfare agencies billions to keep the Palestinian problem alive, but if they had invested the money in helping the Palestinians settle in the countries where they have already lived for years as equal, productive citizens, the issue could have long since been taken off the agenda. Instead, the West and the Arab-Muslim world pay cold cash to prevent the issue from being resolved, contradicting all historical, legal and political logic. The West has squandered billions by sustaining corrupt UN agencies and continuing manipulative anti-Semitism through the so-called "return of the refugees," a euphemism for the destruction of Israel.

In the current negotiations for a peace agreement, Israel countered the Palestinian demand for the "return" with the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people, a Jewish state. Israel's demand was made to force the Palestinians to recognize that Israel – with full, unalienable, undeniable historic rights to the Holy Land – was demographically a Jewish country with a Jewish culture and Jewish heritage, and that the dream of destroying it with floods of refugees and jihad terrorists had to be permanently shelved. The Israeli demand is based on the assumption that by recognizing Israel as a Jewish state the Palestinians will have to abandon the plan of trying to change its demographics with a "legitimate" influx of refugees and terrorist operatives.

Abbas has a full understanding of the operative and historical implications of the Israeli demand, and therefore is unwilling to include Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state in a peace agreement. He claims that the Palestinian "right of return" is the "individual right" of each Palestinian, therefore he cannot, in their name, waive it and thereby resolve a core problem of the Israeli-Arab conflict. In taking this position, Abbas openly admits he is not a leader, does not represent the collective will of the Palestinian people, and has no legitimate standing or legal status as far as they are concerned.

That means that Israel is being asked to accept an agreement from a disposable leader who one day will disappear, while the various branches of his administration and his religious establishment brainwash the younger generation of Palestinians to continue the conflict, to dream of the "return" and to plan Israel's destruction. Abbas is not considered their leader by the Palestinian populations in the Arab countries or in the Gaza Strip, and even the Palestinians in the West Bank claim that without the support of Israel he would not survive for even a day. Thus the urgent American pressure on Israel to reach an agreement with Abbas, based on the claim that Mahmoud Abbas is a "unique" leader presenting a "unique" opportunity for peace, is difficult to understand. The Palestinian people, exposed to unending incitement to violence against Israel, ignore the promises made by Abbas as well as the agreements he signed, as they ignore the declarations of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state made previously by Yasser Arafat.

Arafat, the legendary Palestinian leader, recognized Israel as a Jewish state. It was only natural that Abbas, his protégé and the heir to the Palestinian leadership, would follow his precedent. But Abbas' retreat shows the inherent deception in the Palestinian negotiating strategy. That strategy, to which the West has blinded itself, permits Palestinian officials to lie when dealing with the Jews. By calling Jewish history a "delusional myth" Abbas ignores his own side's previous commitments and Israel's right to preserve its own identity.

Other Palestinian officials go further. Adli Sadeq, the PA ambassador to India, said in 2011 that Israelis who believe the PA recognized Israel's right to exist were deluding themselves. "[Israelis]," he said, "fool themselves, assuming that Fatah accepts them and recognizes the right of their state to exist. No two Palestinians disagree that Israeli exists, but recognition of its right to exist is something else, different from recognition of its existence."

"Sincere" Palestinian activists actually admit that "Arafat's recognition of Israel in 1993 [was] a meaningless ornament to a deceptive peace process that is regularly cited by the PA to create a facade of sincerity.

The only way the Americans can promote a genuine peace would be to exert pressure in three directions:

• On themselves and the rest of the West. They must stop regarding the Palestinian Arabs who settled in the Arab countries as refugees and stop financing the subversive agencies brainwashing them to believe in the "return" and keeping the dream alive of Israel's destruction.
• On the Arab states, which, under the shadow of regional developments and with Western pressure, have to put an end to racist and discriminatory policies against the Palestinian Arabs living in their midst for so many years, recognize them and give them full civil rights.
• On the Palestinians, especially the Palestinian Authority leadership. Israel is fully aware of their tricks and will no longer accept Palestinian lies, promises, extortion or manipulation and will not allow even one Palestinian "refugee" to "return" to its territory. They have to realize that Israel will not permit the West Bank to become another "Hamastan," another region populated by Islamist jihad terrorists whose only desire is to kill Israelis. The Palestinian leadership should focus on the positive aspects of building a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip as a center of political and national Palestinian identification. It should already be preparing the Palestinians in the diaspora for the realization that the new Palestinian state will not be large enough for all of them and that they will have to become citizens of the countries where they currently live.

The main change will have to be made by the Americans. Their global failures in dealing with radical Islam, Iran and Russia, to name but three, should have taught them a lesson. The American administration should put an end to its disastrous – and amateurish – experiments in foreign policy. It has to internalize the value of Israel's faithful, stable friendship, unique in the quicksand of the treacherous, unstable Middle East. The Americans are Archimedes' fulcrum and they now have to find the lever that can bring about peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead of trying to pressure Israel and encouraging the Palestinian narrative for Israel's destruction, America should pressure both the Arab states and the West to say, loudly and clearly, "There will be no return." The descendants of the Palestinian refugees will be absorbed as citizens with equal rights by the Arab countries and will not "return" to Israel. The Arab-Muslim practice Taqiyya which is lying permitted under Muslim religion.

That is where peace will begin. Secretary of State John Kerry's recent remarks, in which he said that Israel had to waive its demand that the leaders of the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as a Jewish state, was most  unfortunate. It showed that the Americans would continue to appease the Palestinians, preventing an end to the conflict and making it impossible to achieve peace.

Dr. Reuven Berko has a Ph.D. in Middle East studies, is a commentator on Israeli Arabic TV programs, writes for the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom and is considered one of Israel's top experts on Arab affairs.

Related Topics: Reuven Berko

Reader comments on this item

Palestinian State cannot be established in Israel

Submitted by YJ Draiman, Jun 11, 2014 21:55

Under International Law and Treaties – An Arab/Palestinian State cannot be established in Israel on Jewish land allocated to the Jewish people under the San Remo agreement of 1920, confirmed by the 1920 treaty of Sevres and Lausanne, including the 1919 Faisal Weizmann Agreement and incorporated and ratified by the League of Nations and signed by 51 member states. The San Remo agreement of 1920 states that only the Jewish people can set-up its own government - exclusive political rights. In violation of the of the agreement the British illegally allocated over 78% of the Jewish land to Trans-Jordan. Never in history was there a Palestinian people, government or culture. Now you want to allocate more Jewish land to the Arab/Palestinians, again in violation of the international law and treaties. This would create two Arab countries and one Jewish country greatly reduced from its original land allocation. This is in violation of International law and the 1920 San Remo agreement which was incorporated and adapted by the League of Nations and signed by 51 member countries. Under the law we must address the forced ejection of over a million Jewish families from Arab countries and the property and assets that were confiscated, including over 70,000 square miles of real oroperty. In addition many of those expelled Jews died during those Arab pogroms against its Jewish population. YJ Draiman

Islam's Ban on Lying?

Submitted by R. Muhammad, Apr 7, 2014 03:27

While Mr. Berko does good work in exposing Palestine, he also shows ignorance of Islamic doctrine. Lying IS Islamic. Has he never heard of taqiyya, kitman, muruna, tawriya? Has he never read Islamic Law manuals such as the Al-Azhar-approved Umdat al-Salik which has a section on lying? Has he never read the hadeeth such as Bukhair 5.369? Has he never read the tafsir on the Qur'an like Ibn Kathir's on Sura 3:28? Has he never read the most authoritative Shi'a sources like Al-Kafi on dissimulation? Lying IS Islamic. I highly recommend Mr. Berko do more research into Islam to live up to his status as an expert on Arab affairs. If he wishes to make his research a lot easier by having me provide him with references, he should contact me through this site by replying with his email address.

Islamic disinformation, deception and intentional lies are permitted and in fact promoted under the Muslim Qur’an and Sharia law.- Yj Draiman

Islamic disinformation, deception and intentional lies are permitted and in fact promoted under the Muslim Qur’an and Sharia law

Therefore, we should be suspect of any and all information coming out of any Arab-Muslim sources. All statements by Arab-Muslims must be held suspect until thoroughly verified.

Deception, fraud and gross exaggeration are a way of life for the Muslims. Promises are not kept. Terror and violence is a fundamental premise. Their leaders subjugate the masses by inciting them against non-Muslims, and even against their own Muslim people.

In the past 1500 years the Muslims have eliminated over a half a billion people and the death toll is increasing daily. Muslim promoting, financing and supporting terrorism is endangering the safety and security of the entire world. Muslims at large bring instability and insecurity to the non-Muslim people in the world. Over 90% of world conflicts today involve Muslims.

The Muslims promote death and destruction and destroy any remnants of previous history which factually disproves their false teachings, and which contradicts their beliefs and agenda.

When will the world-at-large wake-up and realize that all non-Muslims are in danger of losing life and liberty if we do not take immediate,  proactive action to stem, and eliminate the growing terror and violence?

A unified world with allied forces implementing full intelligence gathering and sharing, and security cooperation must be set-up to confront and end the unbridled Muslim terror and violent, genocidal Muslim activities.

If the silent Muslim majority does not act to curb the extreme, radical Muslim agenda, they must be considered as complicit in all of the extreme Muslim activities; and thus, be held accountable.  Fundamental “Common Law” dictates such “complicity” as guilt.

The Media, which is always looking for sensationalism is only adding fuel to the fire, and is in fact accelerating the increase of terror and violence.  Any media found guilty of such incitement should be held accountable.

Muslim extremism has constantly made known its’ intent to kill, and subjugate all “non-believers”.  World domination is the goal of Muslim extremism.  As such, it is time for the world to unite, and finally put an end to this insidious nemesis once and for all. To do otherwise is to simply kneel and wait for the Muslim sword to fall and to behead us all.

YJ Draiman