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.
For these reasons it was important to include some lessons about Israel and the Jews on this web site. D.E.I. Diversity Equity and Inclusion is really discrimination against people who aren't considered an oppressed class. Although the Jews are probably the most oppressed class in the world they are not considered as one.. The number of Jews getting accepted into college and getting jobs has been dropping ever since D.E.I.. Propaganda against the Jews describes Israel as an oppressor state. However it was the Jews who were oppressed throughout history.
According to the Bible the Jews fled oppression by the Egyptians. The time this persecution is estimated to have occurred is 1300 BC which is 3,322 years ago. 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 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 revolted and gained independence for a time. The Romans conquered Israel and in 70 AD destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish temple. The Persians conquered Israel in 614, and the Arabs in 636. ln 691 the Arabs built the Dome of the Rock mosque over what was left of the Jewish temple. This was followed by the crusades, followed by conquest by Muslims using Mamluks (Muslim slave soldiers), and later the Ottoman Turks. 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. Many Jews thought a Jewish state was an impossible dream. Despite the odds against them Herzl 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.
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 escape. 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.
One would think that at this point the British would allow the Jews to escape to Palestine but instead their immigration policies to the Jews became worse. The British did this in large part because the Arabs were against Jewish immigration.
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.
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 Jews have made the desert bloom.
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. "
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 am writing 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. Another lesson is that despite Arab terror its safer in Israel for children than in the United States. That's why Israel is so important. It is a refuge for the Jews. It is a place where Jews can be happy and not persecuted or in danger of crime.
Muslim countries go to war with Israel when they think they are strong enough to win and drive Israel into the sea. So far the Arabs have failed.
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 a different perspective than the anti-Israel propaganda that is taught in American public schools.
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