Words can be used to inform or to misinform. For example, chants like “Free Palestine”, and “End the illegal occupation” sound very noble, until you realize that there has not been a single Jew living in the Gaza since 2005 (1), and the Palestine Authority has ruled the so-called “West Bank” since the 1994 Oslo Accords, with its own government, police force, school system, etc. [2]
The Arab people certainly do not enjoy freedoms under the tyrannies of Hamas and Abbas. [3] [4] Perhaps the Palestinians should reconsider the slogan, “Free Palestine,” as a call to throw off those tyrannies and bring in democracy.
Then there is the term “West Bank,” which makes one ponder, west of what? “West Bank” was the name given to Judea and Samaria by the Kingdom of Trans-Jordan, residing on the East Bank of the Jordan River, when they invaded Israel and annexed this territory in 1948, an act internationally condemned as illegal. [5] Trans-Jordan itself was the Palestinian Arab state, which in 1922 was carved out of two-thirds of the territory that was supposed to become the Jewish homeland. [6] So we already have two states for two peoples.
Interestingly, the term “Jew” historically referred to an inhabitant of Judea. Therefore, Jews are native to this area. On the other hand, the Arabs, who claim this territory from Canaanite times, 3,500 years ago, are not from Judea-Samaria at all, but, as their name implies, from Arabia. Jews cannot be illegally occupying the land that spawned them, especially when that territory was unanimously conceded as their homeland by the League of Nations ninety-five years ago. Perhaps we should consider the slogan “End the Occupation” to pertain to the Arab occupation of the Levant. In 632 AD the Arab armies poured out of the Arabian peninsula and swept through the predominately Christian Middle East [7], conquering it—including what is now Israel, North Africa, and southern Europe—on their way to conquering the world for Islam. They would have succeeded had not the European states driven them back.
Islam divides the world into two regions: Dar al-Islam, where sharia law is in force, and Dar al-Harb, the region of chaos [8], i.e., the rest of the world, which has not yet fallen under the sway or the sword of Islam. Perpetual jihad (holy war) is determined for Dar al-Harb, until it is conquered for Allah. So long as there are Muslims who take that call to jihad literally, people living at peace in Dar al-Harb will be the victims of continuous atrocities by the “Religion of Peace.” The peace of the “Religion of Peace” does not come until Dar al-Harb submits to its rule, which is why Islam is the Arab word for submission. But let’s not be naïve. Even under Muslim rule, the “Religion of Peace” does not bring much peace. Radical and Jihadist Muslims are raping, robbing, and slaughtering other Muslims, Christians, and assorted minorities on a grand scale within the idyllic realm of Dar al-Islam, in the name of Islam.
If, somehow, a country formerly conquered by Muslims should throw off their rule, such as was the case of Spain, Portugal, southern France, Hungary, the Baltic countries, and parts of Russia [9], the Islamic worldview sees this as an unacceptable state: for all the world is destined to fall under the rule of sharia, in Muslim thinking. Now, for the first time in history, a country in the heart of the Arab world has been returned to its original occupants, a people who, according to Muslim thinking, were accursed, and driven into exile, to be superseded by the “true religion.”
Jews had the pretension of re-establishing their homeland after they were supposedly cast into the dustbin of history. For these infidels to return after 2,000 years calls into doubt the very raison d’etre of Islam. That land must be taken back for Islam, whether under the guise of the Ottoman Empire, the ISIS caliphate, or Palestine. The “illegal” occupation in Muslim eyes is not limited to Judea and Samaria, but to every inch of Israel. And it’s not about nationalism, it’s about religion. When a terrorist brandishing a knife runs into a crowd of Jews he’s not screaming “for the fatherland”, but “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is greater). Greater than whom? Greater than the God of Israel??
In this quest to abolish the only Jewish country in the world, the Arabs have found a welcome ally in the European Union and the United Nations. However, those European nations that de-legitimize Israel and pressure her to concede to Arab demands should well consider the Pandora’s Box that they are opening for themselves. In the eyes of Islam, those very European nations are illegitimate and must be returned to Dar al-Islam… …by any means necessary.
Footnotes:
- Wikipedia, Israeli disengagement from Gaza, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza
- Wikipedia, Oslo Accords, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords
- Elliot Abrams, “Chronic Kleptocracy: Corruption Within the Palestinian Political Establishment,” https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/151016/Abrams.HFACTestimony%2007092012.pdf
- Denying Political Persecution, PA Continues Large-scale Arrests of Hamas Members http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.673386
- Wikipedia, Jordanian occupation of the West Bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordanian_occupation_of_the_West_Bank
- Eli E. Hertz, “Mandate for Palestine The Legal Aspects of Jewish Rights,” http://www.mythsandfacts.org/conflict/mandate_for_palestine/mandate_for_palestine.htme”
- Hitti, Phillip K., History of the Arabs, Palgrave, 1970, pgs. 139-146
- Cline, Austin, “Dar al-Harb vs. Dar al-Islam,” http://atheism.about.com/od/islamicextremism/a/daralharb.htm
- Koller, Markus, EGO, “Ottoman History of Southeast Europe,” http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/models-and-stereotypes/from-the-turkish-menace-to-orientalism/markus-koller-ottoman-history-of-south-east-europe
Source: First Fruits of Zion
