ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT: RELIGION OR POLITICS?

By ALI ABUBAKAR SADIQ

For anyone to be fair and just on the Arab, or rather Palestine-Israeli conflict must travel back in time thousands of years. It is the oldest, most vicious and retractable conflict between two nations in the history of the world with some of the worst atrocities ever recorded for the better part of the last 3000 years. It began around 1050 BC when the Philistines occupy part of the Judean hill country as they possessed superior military hardware, thanks to their monopoly on smithing iron. In the 10th century BC, under the leadership of David, the Israelites defeated the Philistines in that epic duel between David and Goliath.

The victory made the Jews rise as a very powerful nation in the time of David, which laid the foundation of a mighty kingdom that continued to flourish after him under his successor Solomon, one of the mightiest Kings to ever grace the lands. Afterwards they descend into iniquity and wickedness and incur the curse of God as he mentioned in:

Q17:4-5 We addressed the Children of Israel in the scripture: “You will commit gross evil on earth, twice. You are destined to fall into great heights of arrogance. When the first time comes to pass, we will send against you servants of ours who possess great might, and they will invade your homes. This is a prophecy that must come to pass. Afterwards, we will give you a turn over them, and will supply you with a lot of wealth and children; we will give you the upper hand. If you work righteousness, you work righteousness for your own good, but if you commit evil you do so to your own detriment. Thus, when the second time comes to pass, they will defeat you and enter the mosque (masjid), just as they did the first time. They will wipe out all the gains you had accomplished.”

On the approach of the first warning, the Prophet Jeremiah warned them to give up their iniquities as the wrath of God is about to overtake them. Unheeded and arrogant, the first of the warning came to pass as Nebuchadnezzar, the great Babylonian King, in 605 BC laid siege on Jerusalem and eventually entering it, Killing King Jehoiakim, destroyed the great Temple of Solomon and carried into captivity a great number of Jews to Babylon as slaves.

As resourceful people, the Jews fared well in exile as most of them were employed in Babylonian public works and eventually gaining their freedom and rising to influential positions. With their faith and religious devotion renewed, the hope for restoration to Palestine was preached and cherished. In 545 BC with the rise of rival power in Persia under Cyrus, they gained an ally whom they secretly negotiated with and helped conquer Babylon. Their reward came in allowing them return back to their land. By 516 BC many of the Jews returned to Jerusalem and the reconstruction of the Temple of Solomon completed. As God promised in the above verse, with their mended ways, gained ascendency once again and continued to flourish in their land until when Jesus rise to renew the message of the Old Testament.

Their iniquity returned and they sought to crucify Jesus, alas the second warning came to pass as God afflicted them with a terrible punishment in the hands of the Romans under Titus in 70 AD. Jerusalem was sacked again and the Temple of Solomon destroyed. The Biblical prophecy as narrated by the Quran was fulfilled but as God doesn’t change his ways, that is if you do good you will see it and vice-versa. In 614 AD the Sassanid army invaded Jerusalem looted and plunder it killing around 90,000 Christians inhabitants, taking away the True Cross after destroying the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (the supposed ground zero for the crucifixion of Jesus), as the city was then under the Byzantium empire of Heraclius.

In 636 AD the Muslim forces under Abu Ubaida and his commander Khalid Bn Walid laid four months long bloodless siege until when Sophronius (The King of the city) surrenders under the terms of paying Jizya and surrendering the keys of the city personally to Caliph Umar. Umar had to travel all the way from Medina to effect the surrender and shown magnanimity unparalleled in the history of Jerusalem siege. For the first time in 500 years the inhabitant of the city living under the oppressive rule of the Romans were freed and Jews allowed to live in it once again. In 691 AD, The Umayyad Caliph Abdul Malik ordered the construction of the Dome of the Rock mosque on a bedrock on Temple Mount. Muslims continued to rule the city for the next 400 years until when the Crusaders recaptured it in 1099 AD during the first crusade.

The Muslim Sunni Ayyubid dynasty under Saladin conquered Jerusalem once again after its sojourn with Crusaders for 88 years. The Christian west began a series of Crusades to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims for 42 years mobilizing great armies until when they succeeded in the 6th Crusade in 1229 AD. After 15 short years under the control of the crusaders, Jerusalem returned once again under the Muslims as the Mamluks recaptured it in 1260.

The Ottoman Empire took control of Jerusalem from 1517 AD until the 20th century when the British regain control after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. It is clear that the Jews have not been able to control Jerusalem since before the time of Jesus until the 20th Century. Let us examine the subterfuges and complacency that led the Jews back to, not only Jerusalem but creating the country of Israel.

Oil was discovered in Mosul in 1899 by a British geological survey and a Deutsche Bank technical commission described Mosul as ‘Veritable “Lake of petroleum”. The Ottoman government gave Deutsche Bank a concession to build a railway linking Mesopotamia with Europe in 1903 and in 1904 also got the exclusive right to explore oil in Mosul and neighboring Baghdad. This could have been one of the secret reasons for the outbreak of the First World War as Germany is getting a foothold to the greatest riches the world has ever known at the expense of Britain and France (the major superpowers then). Two years earlier, the first Zionist congress met in Basle in 1897 due to the rising anti-Semitism in Europe with a view to the necessities of a Jewish state, the objective of the meeting according to the convener Dr Theodor Herzl is “To lay the foundation stone of the house which is to shelter the Jewish Nation”. In 1898 they approached Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and the Sultan of Ottoman in 1901 both of whom rejected the proposal. They turned to Arthur Balfour, the British Prime Minister, in whom they found an ally (as they had in King Cyrus over 2500 years ago).

A year into the break of the First World War, in 1915, Sir Charles Greenway, one of the founders of Anglo-Persian Oil Company, requested the British Foreign office for complete oil rights in any portion of the Ottoman Empire that would came under British influence. Britain and France confident of victory against Germany and Ottoman Empire, were determined to block any other power of exploiting the region’s resources. The same year 1915 under the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, the British government reached an understanding with the Sheriff of Mecca to recognize the independence of Arab countries throughout the Levant and Arabia after the First World War in exchange for their support against their fellow Muslims, the Ottomans, to be expelled from Arabia.

In January 1916 the Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France decided to divide the Ottoman Empire provinces outside Arabian Peninsula. Britain will control present day Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Southern Iraq and for the Arab support they will get Arabian Peninsula and greater Syria. As the First World War rages on, another subterfuge is brewing as Lord Rothschild, the Jewish member of British parliament and leader of the British Jewish community, in Cahoots with Arthur Balfour manufactured the famous Balfour Declaration in 1917 that paved the way for the creation of the state of Israel. The Balfour declaration does not consult the sheriff of Mecca despite the earlier Hussein-McMahon agreement of two years earlier.

In the Anglo-French Declaration of 1918, which went on to become article 22 in the covenant of the League of nations in 1919, some part reads “The Object aimed at by France and Great Britain in prosecuting in the East the war let loose by the ambition of Germany is the complete and definite emancipation of the people so long oppressed by Turks and the establishment of national governments and administration deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the indigenous populations”. While the Balfour declaration already gave the Zionists the chance of statehood, on 22 June 1922 the house of lords by the majority of 60 to 29 rejected the Balfour declaration as it “directly violates the pledges made by his Majesty government to the people of Palestine” Despite this opposition by the house of lord, the Balfour declaration was incorporated into the mandate for Palestine and comes into effect in 1923. The Brits desperately wants Haifa in Palestine to establish a free port where oil from the Middle East will be exported to Europe, thus the need for an allied state controlling this gateway to Europe could not be compromised.

Arab revolt broke out in 1937 and lasted until 1939 when the Brits convened a roundtable conference between Arabs and Zionists. On 19th of May 1939 British government issued a white paper reversing its policy by advising
Creation of an independent Palestinian State within 10 years. Restricting Jewish migration to 75,000 for the next five years after which it will cease altogether Land transfer in some areas allowed, some restricted and others forbidden. The Arabs outrightly rejected the proposal. With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 the situation worsened as the influx of Jewish migrants from war torn Europe increased substantially. Hitler became the modern day Nebuchadnezzar as he shipped millions of Jews to the gas chamber and many millions displaced.

After the war, on 2nd of April 1947 Britain took the issue back to United Nations and 11 states committee was charged to look into the issue and came up with the recommendation of two state solution and the internationalization of the city of Jerusalem. The Arabs rejected the proposal, which would have settled the dispute and would have changed the course of Middle East history in the last 70 years. As the going back and forth on this issue continues to bedevil the two nations every now and then (as it is happening today), both the Jews and Palestine have some big take-home lessons. Sincere administration of the two-state solution and internationalization of Jerusalem is the best option for attaining peace in the region considering both the Jews and Palestinians had valid claim to the land going back thousands of years. Jerusalem had been a source for bloodshed in the last two millenniums for its spiritual importance considering to the Jewish people, Temple Mount (their holiest place) is akin to what Mecca is to the Muslims. The Christians have the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Jesus was crucified and the Muslims have the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest Mosque after Mecca and Medina.

Finally, the Jews should never forget that whenever they descend into iniquity God always send his punishers, therefore they should beware of the next Nebuchadnezzar, Titus or Hitler if they continue their arrogance and oppressions. As for the Palestinians, the Arabs or rather the whole Muslim must remember that:

Q3:28 “The believers never ally themselves with the disbelievers, instead of the believers. Whoever does this is exiled from GOD”.

The Palestinians, Arabs and Muslim should realize they can never have another Umar or Saladin to win back Jerusalem for them as long as they will hold their enemies close and their brothers away.  The Muslim’s world combined resources in human and capital surpassed that of any other nation under the sun but unfortunately Muslims today are the most impoverished and backward with their arrested medieval thinking that produce terrorists. If anything we should learn from the Jews how loving one another, knowledge and resilience made Israel, a nation of 8 million people, stick out as a sore thumb against the 22 Arab nations with a combined population of over 400 million people. The Jews were only able to achieve this by heeding to a Quranic command we refused to imbibe:

Q8:65 “O you prophet, you shall exhort the believers to fight. If there are twenty of you who are steadfast, they can defeat two hundred, and a hundred of you can defeat a thousand of those who disbelieved”.

*Ali Abubakar Sadiq
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