The War Has Begun

This weekly report is going to be nothing like any of my past posts--my home land is at war. In the wake of the October 7th attack by the terrorist group Hamas, Israel declared war. With all of the history behind the land, this war has sparked polarizing riots all over the world. Furthermore, Instagram infographics and accounts have spread propaganda all over the online communities. As a Jewish American, this conflict has consumed my life for the past few days, and I have committed myself to learning about the history of tension between Israelis and Palestinians. I acknowledge I have bias, especially in regards to the creation of Israel--the topic of this report. However, through the next reports, I hope to show other opinions about the acts of the Israeli government into the 21st century.

This is a condensed version of my research, and only scratches the surface of the conflict, but I'm here to address some claims. There have been a ton of messages spread around that Israel was created by colonialism and "the Jewish people" stole the land from the Palestinians. First, the land of Israel never officially belonged to the Palestinians. This is not to diminish their claim to the land, but before Israel, it was a British Mandate, and under British rule. Yes, it was called Palestine, but it wasn’t a self-ruling country because the British owned it, and there were Muslims, Jews, Christians, etc all living there. Before the British, it was the Ottomans, and so on and so forth. Throughout all of history, the Jewish people have lived in that land in some way. In fact, dating all the way back to 1010 BCE there were thriving Jewish empires. Furthermore, the land of Palestine did not exist until the Roman rule of Judah of Judea (the Jewish land) starting in 60 BCE. The Romans destroyed the main Temple in Jerusalem, villages all around, killed hundreds of Jews, and sold them into slavery. For the Jews who remained, they rebuilt the Temple which was destroyed again by the Romans in 135 BCE. In an attempt to punish, humiliate, and remove the Jewish identity tied to the land they changed the name of the land from "Judea" to "Palestina", and that is when the ethnonationalism we know as “Palestinians” came into existence. Again, that was an extremely long time ago, which doesn’t discredit the Palestinian claim to the land, but by the documentation of history, Jews had been in the land centuries before Palestine existed.

The second claim is about ethnic cleansing in the Middle East which did occur. However, people claim the Jews cleansed Arabs in Israel, but history could argue it was the Arabs who ethnically cleansed the Jews. Starting in the 1900s extremely antisemitic laws kicked Jewish Arabs from their homes and forced them into Israel. Furthermore, before Israel’s creation, Palestinians became increasingly aggressive towards ancient Jewish communities. What I say is to prove that this “peace” people speak of never really existed and it wasn’t the Jews who started the hostility.

First, the claim that Israel has ethnically cleansed Arabs, is beyond false. Ethnic cleansing is defined as, “the mass expulsion or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic or religious group in a society,” which did not happen to the Arabs. To prove this, let's look at population: the population of Arabs in Israel rose from 160,000 in 1948 to over 2 million today. It's not logical to say Arabs were cleansed when their communities have grown and thrived under the Jewish government.

However, the population of Jews in Arab countries was almost 1 million in 1948 and is less than 5 thousand today, in fact, there are less than 10 running synagogues where Arab Jewish communities once thrived. We know this change in Jewish population wasn’t just due to Jewish people leaving their homes for Israel–they were forced out by antisemitism and ethnic cleansing. For example, Egypt had 75,000 Jews in 1948 and after extremely oppressive laws and hostility towards its Jewish community, the Jewish population dwindled to less than 100 in 2018. In July 1947, an amendment to Egyptian law stipulated that companies must employ a minimum of 90% Egyptian nationals, which resulted in the loss of livelihood for many Jews. In 1956, the Egyptian government used the Sinai Campaign as a pretext for expelling almost 25,000 Jews and confiscating their property while 1,000 more Jews were sent to prisons and detention camps. In November 1956, a government proclamation declared that “all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state,” and promised that they would be soon expelled. Thousands of Jews were ordered to leave the country, allowed to take only one suitcase, a small sum of cash, and forced to sign declarations “donating” their property to the Egyptian government. By 1957 the Jewish population had fallen to 15,000 and in 1967, after the Six-Day War, there was a renewed wave of persecution and the community dwindled to 2,500. This is only one example--I have 7 more…

Now, for the claim that Jews were hostile and stole the land of the Palestinians. Brutal pogroms by Arab gangs began in the 1920s in ancient Jewish communities. By the way, a pogrom is defined as, “a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly the Jews.” In 1920 Bnei Yehuda, Tel Hai, and Metula were raided. Kfar Saba and Kfar Malal attacked in 1921. Hulda, Kfar Uria, Ruhama, Hartuv, Matzo, and Poria were destroyed in 1929. Lastly, Beit Shevan in 1936. These were ALL peaceful ancient Jewish communities that were attacked by Palestinians prior to 1947. Furthermore, the Palestinian leader (during the end of these horrific raids), Hajj Amin Al-Husayni, met with Hitler, during the Holocaust to plan to, “bring the Holocaust to the Middle East” and exterminate the Jews. It is offensive to the highest degree that there is a claim that the Jewish people were aggressive first and stole the land, when Jews were being cleansed from Arab countries, two operations (with Palestinians and Nazis) took place to exterminate the Jews in Palestine, and pogroms occurred decimating our ancient communities in our own land. Peace was never an option because the Palestinians wanted to exterminate the Jews with Hitler's help, and after they denied a two-state solution in the 1947 conference, they killed 5 innocent Jewish civilians and partnered with 5 neighboring Arab countries to “wipe out the Jews from the land” or and I quote, bring a “river of blood” to kill all of the Jews. 

I again acknowledge that I hold bias as a Jewish American. However, I can acknowledge that as history went on there were many mistakes made on behalf of the Israeli government. I hope to continue researching and learn about how the mistake came to be. But, in regards to the beginning of Israel, I believe it began with an attempt by Arabs to rid the world of the Jewish people. It was with this antisemitism and hostility the Israeli-Palestine conflict began. I pray this war will stop before it really begins. Until next week,

- Samantha Stein