9.1 Israel: Who is the Oppressor?
Adam Milstein reported in The Jerusalem Post reported that:
Activist teachers and administrators have increasingly injected antisemitism into American public and private high schools through expanded Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) departments and policies and by promoting radical curricula steeped in Critical Race Theory (CRT), such as the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (LESMC). Through this ideology, American Jews are implicitly and sometimes, explicitly, portrayed as privileged white oppressors. By extension, the Jewish State, Israel, is described as an oppressive ethno-state engaged in apartheid, colonialism, and ethnic cleansing.
We are starting to see the consequences of this campaign. High school students, both in public and private schools around the nation are engaging in antisemitic bullying and harassment toward their Jewish peers. Amplified through social media and group chats, the phenomenon has become increasingly frequent in high schools. Antisemitism also rears its head in high school sports and a there’s a spike in antisemitic graffiti, like swastikas. Physical violence rooted in antisemitism has become increasingly common in the U.S. and worldwide, from Los Angeles to Atlanta, Palm Beach, New York, and even in Australia.
The New York Post reported that:
The Community Education Council for District 14, which covers ultra-liberal Williamsburg and Greenpoint, used its platform to encourage the 700-student protest involving 100 schools — and even shared resources including antisemitic signs proclaiming, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Recommended chants included, “Resistance is justified when people are occupied” and “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want Zionists here!” Students protesting on Thursday near Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, were captured on video yelling, “F–k the Jews!” Jewish students were horrified.
On November 25, 2023 the New York Post reported that:
Students at Hillcrest high school found out that one of their teachers had attended a pro-Israel rally. Hundreds of kids flooded into hallways in protest, running amok, chanting, jumping, shouting, vandalizing the school and waving Palestinian flags or banners. Many tried to barge into the teacher’s classroom despite school staffers blocking their entry. “Everyone was yelling ‘Free Palestine!’” a senior said. “Everyone was screaming ‘(The teacher) needs to go!’” a ninth-grader said... They found where she lives — her address, her phone number, her family and everything — her personal information,” a senior said.
It's not clear how much of this hatred toward Jews was taught in school and how much was taught to them by their parents and by social media but when students disrupt school and go after teachers because they have been radicalized by lies there is a pressing need for them to be educated with the truth. This is why lessons about Israel and Islam have been included on this web site.
This lesson is the first of a series of lessons about Israel. Since Jews are accused of oppressing Palestinians this lesson addresses the question of who are the oppressors and who are the oppressed? The Jews have been oppressed for thousands of years.
According to the Bible, 3,323 years ago the Jews fled oppression by the Egyptians. Disney made a movie called the Prince of Egypt based on the Bible. The movie starts with a song of the Jews crying out for God to deliver them from oppression by the Egyptians.
In 720 BC there were two Israelite kingdoms the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah.
In 720 BC the Neo-Assyrian empire conquered Israel and forced many Jews out of the Kingdom of Israel and into captivity. In 586 BC the neo-Babylonian empire conquered the Kingdom of Judah, and forced Jews into captivity and exiled many to Babylon. In 539 Persia conquered Babylon. King Cyrus of Persia was a benevolent king who allowed the Jews to return to Israel and rebuild the destroyed temple. In 330 BC the Greeks invaded Israel. Greeks initially allowed Jews to practice Judaism. From 168–167 BCE, Antiochus IV issued decrees officially suppressing the Jewish religion; subjects were required to eat pork and violate Jewish dietary law, work on the Jewish Sabbath, cease circumcising their sons, and and worship Greek Gods. The policy of tolerance of Jewish worship was at an end. The Jews, led by the brave Maccabees revolted and gained independence for eighty years. The Romans conquered Israel. The Jews rebelled against Roman rule and the Romans in 70 AD destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish temple. Masada the last rebel stronghold, fell to the Romans 3 years later. 62 years later the Jews rebelled again, led by the fearless Bar Kokhba, only to be crushed again. The Roman emperor Hadrian barred Jews from Jerusalem and renamed the country Palestina, after the Grecian Philistines. Jews in the rest of the country, denied their temple built synagogues. The Eastern Roman empire which controlled Israel became known as the Byzantine empire. The JEws joined the Persians and ousted the Byzantines in 614, The Arabs destroyed Jewish communities living in the Arabian Peninsula ad then conquered Israeli in 636. Arabs expropriated Jewish houses and property, uprooted Jewish farmers from their soil and colonized Israel. In 691 the Arabs built the Dome of the Rock mosque over what was left of the Jewish temple. This was followed by the crusades The crusaders were ousted by Muslims led by Saladin. Those Muslims were conquered by the Mamluks who in turn were booted out by the Ottomans. In 1516 Jerusalem was conquered by the Muslims of the Ottoman empire. There are texts recording what life was like for the Jews living under Muslim rule. Here are just 2 of them.
W. B. Lewis, 1824: The Jews at Jerusalem, (I speak even of European Jews) are liable to be stopped by the lowest of the country, who, if he pleases, may demand money of them as a right due to the mussulman ; and this extortion may be practised on the same poor Jew over and over again in the space of ten minutes. The Jews are fond of frequenting the tombs of their forefathers, especially on particular days, to read their prayers of remembrance of the dead. Here advantage is taken of them again. They are rudely accosted and pilfered, and if resistance is made, they are beat almost to death...
From Remarks on the present condition and future prospects of the Jews in Palestine, by Arthur George Harper Hollingsworth, 1852: This Jewish population is poor beyond any adequate word ; it is degraded in its social and political condition, to a state of misery, so great, that it possesses no rights. It can shew no wealth even if possessed of it, because to display riches would secure robbery from the Mahometan population, the Turkish officials, or the Bedouin Arab. ... He creeps along that soil, where his forefathers proudly strode in the fulness of a wonderful prosperity, as an alien, an outcast, a creature less than a dog,
The Ottomans were defeated in World War 1 and the British gained control in 1917. Throughout the history of conquests of Israel, terrible persecutions happened to Jews in Europe, Russia and Asia. When bad things happened Jews were blamed for those events and killed. If there was bad water in a well Jews were accused of well poisoning, if there was a disease spreading such as the Black plague in the 1400s Jews were blamed for that. After the Russian tsar Alexander II was killed (by non-Jews) Jews were blamed and there were extensive anti-Jewish riots in which many Jews were killed.
One bad event that occurred was that military secrets of the French were sold to the Germans. In 1894 (129 years ago counting from 2023) Colonel Dreyfus a Jewish member of the French army was accused of selling French military secrets to the Germans. Dreyfus was found guilty by the anti-semitic French court and imprisoned on Devil's Island. Theodore Herzl was a reporter who was sent to report on the trial. Mr. Herzl saw that the trial was very unfair and realized that Dreyfus was innocent. He turned out to be right, the real villain was a French army major named Ferdinand Esterhazy who had a lot of gambling debt. Major Esterhazy sold French military secrets to the Germans to get the money to pay off the people who wanted the money he owed them. Many Frenchmen believed that Dreyfus was guilty and antisemitic attacks on Jews increased in France. Jews were unfairly blamed for what Dreyfus didn't do. There is an excellent video about the whole shocking affair on ZionismU's website.
Herzl realized that anti-semitism was behind the unfair trial of Colonel Dreyfus and that the Jews of Europe needed their own home country where they wouldn't be persecuted. He joined other Zionists with the idea of returning the Jews to their biblical homeland of Israel. At the time the powerful nation of Turkey was in control of the Jewish homeland and was against Jews returning to their land. Much of the land was desert or swamps with mosquitos that spread Malaria. Arabs who lived in the area were hostile to Jews and many attacked the Jews who lived there. Most Jews thought a Jewish state was an impossible dream. Herzl's advocacy for the immediate establishment of a Jewish state and the exodus of Jews to it, was perceived by most as utter folly. A friend of Herzl's told him that he was insane and that he should speak to Dr. Nordau, a psychiatrist. Dr. Nordau told Herzl, "If you are mad then I am mad as well. I'm behind you and you can count on me." Herzl understood the challenges facing him but he also understood the danger facing the Jews if they did not return to and rebuild their ancient homeland. He believed it could happen and told his fellow Jews, "If you will it, it is no dream."
Turkey was defeated in World War 1 and the Allies gave Britain a mandate to advise and assist the areas of Palestine and Trans-Jordan until they could stand alone and govern themselves. The mandate required that Palestine be a national home for the Jewish people. The mandate also required the British to encourage Jewish immigration and settlement but the British violated that requirement. The British allotted 87,500 acres of the 187,500 acres of cultivable land to Arabs and only 4,250 acres to Jews. The British placed restrictions on Jewish immigration while allowing Arabs to enter the country freely at least in part because the Muslim Arabs were against Jews returning to their homeland, they wanted Israel for themselves. The British also required that Jewish immigrants pay them 1000 pounds sterling with the result that many Jews couldn't afford to enter and were killed in Europe.
In 1933 Nazi Germany created concentration camps where Jews, liberals, communists, people who opposed Hitler and other undesirables were imprisoned and murdered. In 1935 a record number of Jews tried to escape to Palestine but the British limited the number that could enter Starting in 1939, hundreds of thousands of German citizens with mental or physical disabilities were murdered in hospitals and asylums. Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 which started World War II. Germany conquered much of Europe. Einsatzgruppen paramilitary death squads accompanied the German armed forces inside the conquered territories and conducted the genocide of millions of Jews and other Holocaust victims. Hitler's plan was the total annihilation of the Jews. He called that plan the Final Solution.
After the Nazis were defeated in World War 2, the allied powers, the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union, formed an international tribunal in order to try Nazi leaders for the atrocities the Nazis committed in the countries they overran. They held the trials in the city of Nuremberg in Germany but many of the Nazis responsible for those atrocities were missing. One of the missing was Adolph Eichmann, the man Hitler appointed to oversee the Holocaust against the Jews. During the Nuremberg trials, Eichmann's assistant, Dieter Wisliczeny, testified that the mufti of Jerusalem, had:
"repeatedly suggested to the Nazi authorities - including Hitler, von Ribbentrop and Himmler - the extermination of European Jewry...He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures."
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, also called upon the Nazis to prevent Jews from escaping to Palestine. In return for Nazi cooperation the Mufti called upon the Muslims to fight the British. The Mufti raised up a Muslim SS company, which was responsible for killing ninety percent of the Jews in Bosnia.
The gates of Palestine remained closed for the duration of the war, stranding hundreds of thousands of Jews in Europe, many of whom became victims of Hitler’s Final Solution. After the war, the British refused to allow the survivors of the Nazi nightmare to find sanctuary in Palestine. On June 6, 1946, President Truman urged the British government to relieve the suffering of the Jews confined to displaced persons camps in Europe by immediately accepting 100,000 Jewish immigrants. Britain's Foreign Minister, Ernest Bevin, replied sarcastically that the United States wanted displaced Jews to immigrate to Palestine “because they did not want too many of them in New York.”
There was truth to that statement. During the Holocaust United States rules limited the number of Jews that could immigrate.
Two Jewish paramilitary organizations, the Irgun and the
Lechi revolted against the British. In 1948 Israel declared its
independence. Six Arab nations promised to drive Israel into the sea
once it declared independence. King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia said there
are 50 million Arabs what does it matter if we lose 10 million to kill all the
Jews, the price is worth it. The grand Mufti of Jerusalem said "I declare
a holy war, murder them, murder them all." There is a movie called
Cast a Giant Shadow about what the situation was like for the Jews whose
choice was fight or be annihilated and who it appeared would be annihilated even
if they fought.
Israel declared its independence and the surrounding Arab states attacked. Israelis fought
desperately to save their country and won. If they hadn't won Israel
wouldn't exist.
In 1695 a geographer named Hadrian Relandi, who knew Hebrew, Arabic, classical Greek and other languages went to Israel. He found out that not one place in Israel had a name that originates in Arabic. He found that place names were Hebrew, Greek or Roman (Latin). The country was a wasteland. Its few inhabitants were concentrated in cities like Jerusalem, Acre, Safed, Jaffa, Tiberias and Gaza. Most of the city folk were Jewish or Christian, and only a few Muslims, usually Bedouins. Nablus (Shechem)was an exception, home to some 120 Muslims and 70 Shomronim (Samaritans). Natzeret (Nazareth), capital of the Galilee, was inhabited by 700 Christians. Some 5000 people lived in Jerusalem, most of them Jews. The population of Gaza was equally divided between Jews and Christians. The Jews raised grapes, olives and wheat crops (Gush Katif), while the Christians were occupied in commerce and transportation of goods. Safed and Tiberias also had Jewish communities, but the only occupation mentioned is fishing in the Sea of Galilee. Relandi wrote a book about his travels, the cover of which you can see below.
The Jews made a beautiful home out of a country that was mostly desert and swamp. The Jews drained the swamps that were full of mosquitos and malaria. They built big cities in what was desert. The picture below is of the founding of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.
Notice you don't see any Palestinian Arabs in the picture. Arab propaganda tells us that the Israelis invaded and drove out the Palestinians. Israel was mostly empty and desolate. Mark Twain visited Israel in 1867. He wrote that Palestine is desolate and unlovely and that"
“The further we went the hotter the sun got, and the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape became…There was hardly a tree or a shrub any where. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country”
The picture below is Tel Aviv today as seen from the Mediterranean. Jews have turned the desert shown in the picture above into the beautiful city you see below.
The city of Eilat is another example.
I visited Eilat many years ago and the moment I swam underwater in the Red Sea I saw colorful fish everywhere.
The Jews have made the desert bloom.
The picture below is a part of the Negev which used to be desert.
The Jews made Israel a place worth living in and then the Arabs immigrated en mass. Ladislas Farago another man who traveled through Israel wrote a book about it called Palestine at the Crossroads that was published in 1937. He 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. "
In 1939 Winston Churchill challenged the common notion that Jewish immigration into Palestine had uprooted its Arab residents. To the contrary, according to him, “Far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied."
Joan Peters in her book, From Time Immemorial wrote:
“…the British – a ‘civilized’ people – were willing to see Jews in Europe put to death by the Nazis; for ‘fear’ of ‘Arab comment, the British claimed that ‘Palestine’ had ‘no more places’ for Jews, while at the same moment the British were importing ‘illegal’ Arab immigrants by tens of thousands into Palestine to do ‘necessary’ work – work and place they denied the Jews.
Schools and the media tell us that Israelis are illegally occupying Palestinian land but it is the Palestinian Muslims who since they invaded Israel in 635 have driven out Jews and occupied Israel. The Muslims didn't just drive Jews out of Israel. In the years following the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 the Arabs expelled Jews living in their lands. Many of those Jews fled to Israel. More than 850,000 Jews were forced to leave their homes in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Morocco, and several other Arab countries in the 20 years that followed the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. Another major forced migration took place from Iran in 1979–80, following the Iranian Revolution and the collapse of the shah’s regime, adding 70,000 more Jewish refugees to this number.
The Jews have revived the land of Israel so much that they even export food they grow to Europe.
The technology and medicine they have developed in their tiny little country is used all over the world. Jewish children who used to live in terror of persecution in Europe and the Arab countries can now live happily in a strong country that protects them.
While the Jews made the desert into a beautiful country and economic powerhouse Arabs came from neighboring states to get jobs. Arabs come to Israel to get medical care. Jews and Arabs benefitted from what the Jews did. Sadly many Arabs did not appreciate what the Jews have done. Arab terrorists attack Israeli civilians and fire rockets into Israel. Israelis turn desert into farms and the Arabs burn them. You can see damage from Arab incendiary balloons below.
When I was a child I used to donate what little money I had to plant trees in Israel. Israel created forests out of desert. The trees I donated are probably dead. The Arabs burn Israeli forests as you can see in the video below.
I wrote the following paragraph on April 9 2023 after reading about 2 young women, Maya and Rina, 15 and 20 years old who were shot while in their car by Palestinian Muslim Arabs.
Jonathan Feldstein a man who lived in their community wrote that:
When the girls’ death was announced, Palestinian Arabs celebrated by handing out candy in their communities, while our community responded by spontaneous prayers. The prayers continued through Saturday night: reciting Psalms, singing, and tears...
I was out in meetings on Friday when my phone started to blow up with messages asking if we were OK. The names of the victims had not been released until relatives overseas could be informed, but friends heard that a family from my town had been targeted. Israelis reached out, as did Christian friends from all over the world.
It’s not the first time terror has hit close to home. I have sent my children to the funerals of others whose children have been murdered. In one case, all but two children of an entire family were butchered to death by terrorists who broke into their home on a Friday night. The mother who was murdered was the oldest sister of a girl in my daughter’s 12th grade class. The mother and her baby, husband, and two other children were all buried together... There have been more. Despite the threat of terror and war being real here, there’s an indescribable sense that our children are actually safer here than in most parts of the world. A recent survey revealed that Israel is the fifth safest place in the world for tourists, far more so than the US. In addition, year after year, Israel is ranked in the top ten happiest countries on Earth.
There are important lessons in what Jonathan Feldstein wrote. Israelis are human beings who care for each other. Arabs rejoice when they kill innocent Israelis. That tells you a lot about who is responsible for the fighting in the Middle East.
In October 2023, Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Israel and breached the border fence by flying over it with paragliders and bulldozing through a fence. They killed about 1500 of Israelis including entire families. Here is a picture of a family that they murdered.
They took at least 150 families hostage including children and toddlers.
5-year-old Raz and 3-year-old Aviv are among the hostages
being held by Hamas.
Who is oppressing whom?
Israel wants to end Hamas and has bombed some buildings in Gaza but Hamas has warned them that if Israel continues they will execute hostages.
Israel has warned the inhabitants in Gaza to move south so that they don't get bombed when Israel bombs terrorist targets. Hamas has shot inhabitants of Gaza who tried to go south so that civilians will be afraid leave. That way if Israel bombs Hamas, civilians will be hurt and that will make people all over the world hate Israel. Israel's solution was to send in troops to open safe corridors for civilians to travel through so they could be safe. Here is a video about that.
Muslim countries go to war with Israel when they think they are strong enough to win and drive Israel into the sea. In the case of Al Aqsa Storm the terrorists of Gaza struck believing that Israel can't do anything about it because of the hostages they hold. Israel is being accused of killing thousands of Palestinian children in retaliation for the Hamas attacks. That is what the rampaging high school students believe who I mentioned in the beginning of this web page. For the truth about that see lessons on this web page about Gaza by clicking here.
Muslims spread anti-Zionism and anti-semitism throughout the world. I have included below a link to a fantastic web site with great videos about the history of Zionism called Zionism U. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to become aware of a different perspective than the anti-Israel propaganda that is taught by American public schools, colleges and the media.
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