Israel under attack; 60-plus years and counting

On the 60th anniversary of Israel’s formation, as progressive thinkers and academics misrepresent the historical events surrounding this miracle nation — even going so far as to question its right to exist, it is important to remember why the United States has tirelessly defended the Jewish state.

I realize that many have an instinctual impulse to place responsibility for Islamist hate and terrorist activity on the more powerful Western-style nation in the region, despite Israel being the only free democratic society in the Middle East with full rights for women, 17 who hold seats in the Knesset, and an open policy for gays in the military.

Everyone in Israel, including more than a million Arabs, enjoy freedom of speech, religion and the press, and an astonishing 12 Arabs also hold political office. There is not an Arab country where the opposite is true and where non-Arabs hold the same level of freedom.

Two columns on this subject were printed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, but both seem to make the same mistake that I’ve seen over and over again on this issue. Very few people want to begin their historical narrative back far enough to gain a clear contextual picture of the reality we’re confronted with today.

A common belief is that it was only with the birth of Zionism that Jews began to immigrate into Jerusalem and the greater region of Palestine, which is discussed even today in vague terms.

It is important to recognize that toward the end of the Mamluk period, before the Ottoman takeover, Jews had already began to migrate into east Galilee, and a new Jewish-Muslim culture was already developing.

Under the Ottoman Turks’ control until World War I, the Jewish people were already establishing communities within the four districts, or sanjaks, of Gaza, Jerusalem, Nablus and Safed.

While these sanjaks were not considered an administrative unit under the Ottoman regime, they did benefit from the stability this administration provided.

All through the 19th century, despite the Jewish oppression by Turkish officials and an earthquake in 1837 that sent many Jews into poverty, Jews still emigrated from Europe and cultivated land that no one else wanted. By the end of World War I, Jews had reclaimed 100,000 acres from marsh and desert areas, while 750,000 acres were still owned by wealthy landowners.

Once Theodor Herzl established a new Zionism in 1896, which promoted the purchase of land settlements in Palestine and bound the whole of the global Jewish community through national sentiment, both “in accordance with the laws of each country” and taking steps with the “consent of governments where necessary” to obtain the goals, opposition began mounting.

Through the call of an Arab journalist in Paris, Negib Azouri, coupled with the Young Turk revolt, the Arabs were used as pawns to fight against the Ottomans — a fight that, ironically, the Jews would join in at the start of World War I.

Through the war, the British sought support of both Jews and Arabs with promise of land through the McMahon Letter and Balfour Declaration. From this point on, despite this promise and the many to follow, the Palestinians have forfeited every opportunity for a peaceful two-state solution.

On the verge of Gen. Allenby’s Palestinian takeover, instead of joining the British in this effort, the Palestinian Arabs joined with the Ottoman’s indiscriminant pillaging of Jewish communities. Despite some hope during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the British appointment of Hajj Amin al Husseini as the grand mufti of Jerusalem and the subsequent Arab riots and anti-Jewish terrorism through the 1920s stifled any promise of peace through the interwar period.

What seems to be omitted from many sources on this conflict is that Husseini later became a major asset to the Nazi Holocaust; he befriended Hitler and lectured Schutzstaffel, or SS, officers, ultimately defending the cause to exterminate the Jews. As many Arab nations broke free from their European shackles, they simultaneously persecuted their Jewish populations and stripped them of their possessions and bank accounts, forcing them to leave with nothing.

Before Israel’s War of Independence, initiated by five Arab countries following the U.N. establishment of Israel’s independence, Palestinians were again used as pawns, as Arab countries called them out of their land and promised them a country without Jews following the war. Most of them left and paid the price for that decision in the end.

To this day, Arab nations use the issue of refugees as one of their many grievances against Israel. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s recent visit with exiled Hamas chief, Khaled Meshaal, resulted in information we already know. Hours after the meeting, Meshaal said Hamas would not recognize Israel, yet Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return.

If Hamas could, for 10 days, refrain from sending women and children into Jewish schools and churches as human bombs, this could be considered. Unfortunately, Israel has not been permitted to know what a life without constant attacks is like; this is necessary to establish a legitimate peace process.