Post by Islamic Revival on Sept 19, 2005 1:57:44 GMT -5
Righting Zionism's Wrongs
By Abdul-Wajid Siddiqui
In the first half of the twentieth century, Western intervention in the Middle East led to the division of the region along nationalistic lines and, uniquely in the case of the Zionist state of Israel, along sectarian grounds. The sectarian partition of Palestine was not out of compassion for either Muslim or Jew but for colonialist strategic interests that lay in Zionism, whose rights and wrongs did not expressly concern the West, even though this brought forth decades of conflict in the region. And the Israeli regime's Disengagement Implementation Law, aka the "Sharon Plan", supported by the West, is set to entrench this volatile apartheid for the future. However, before Western intervention, Jew and Muslims lived together in peace for centuries under Islam, a fact even recognised by Zionists. All of this should be borne in mind when considering a lasting conflict resolution.
As the First World War drew to a close, Britain and France agreed to divide the Ottoman state into many states, on nationalist grounds, as per the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 16 May 1916. This would allow the victorious Western powers to divide the Middle East into respective spheres of influence. Moreover, through the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917, Britain confirmed its commitment for a further sectarian, division of Palestine to form a Zionist state.
Britain made clear that it was not interested in the rights or wrongs of Zionism and even less about the Arabs there. Britain's Foreign Minister, Arthur James Balfour, after whom the Balfour Declaration is named, wrote in a memorandum sent to Lord Curzon on 11 August 1919 that, “in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country … And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land" [Source: Foreign Office Archive No. 371/4183].
Interestingly, the West did not support Zionism out of compassion for Jews either. In fact, for centuries Jews were regarded as a scourge in Europe, labelled as “Christ killers,” and in the New World during the 1930s, prejudice toward Jews was so widespread in American culture and everyday social life that universities limited the admission of Jewish students through informal quotas and certain neighbourhoods, social clubs and even rest-houses excluded Jews. As such, both America and Britain were quite amenable to facilitate the transport of large numbers of Jews to Palestine from all corners of the Western world as formally recommended on 20 April, 1946 by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.
Backed by Western finance, training and arms, Zionist forces violently carved Israel out of Palestine in 1948, a great upheaval which set off decades of tension and conflict in the region. Both Muslims and Jews lost out, suffering sizeable casualties and entrenched in a siege mentality. If there was any winner, it was the West, which found markets for arms and opportunities for furthering influence through conflict management, in accordance with the old colonialist “divide and rule” policy. It appears that Balfour’s 1919 statement of Zionism being “rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes” held true for Western powers, if not anyone else.
As for the Zionist regime itself, it ensured the success of divide and rule through brutal sectarian apartheid, as borne out in Western media reports. In a statement published to the British newspaper, The Sunday Times of 15 June 1969, Golda Meir snapped, "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist." And the American paper, the New York Times of 14 April 1983 reported that the Israeli Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, said, "We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel … We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours ... When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do will be to scurry around like drugged roaches in a bottle." Fulfilling Western expectations until today, Israel is rewarded with billions of dollars of financial support from America, much to the anger of the Muslim World. Indeed, Loy Henderson, the Director of the US State Department Near East Agency was quite prophetic when, on 24 August 1945, he forewarned the US Secretary of State, James Byrnes, that America would "lose moral prestige if it supported Jewish aspirations in Palestine" [source: Truman Presidential Museum and Library].
Unrepentant, America and Britain have now taken to firmly entrench the Zionist partition of Palestine through support of the Sharon Plan. The Sharon Plan was first described on 18 December 2003 by Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. It was then approved by US President Bush on 14 April 2005 as "historic and courageous actions and then in quick succession by Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on 16 April 2005 when he declared "We welcome the Israeli proposal to disengage from the Gaza and parts of the West Bank." However, just like the "Balfour Declaration", "Bush and Blair’s Declaration" of support for the Sharon Plan is clearly not about rights and wrongs because it establishes a miniscule Palestinian entity which can hardly be described as a state, either in terms of territory or security, as revealed by the Israeli Cabinet Resolution of 6 June 2004.
With regards to territory, although Israel is to evacuate the Gaza Strip it is to maintain "a military presence along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt (Philadelphi Route)" and Israel reserves the right to encroach on even more of Gaza’s territory by adding that "security considerations may require some widening of the area in which the military activity is conducted." As for the West Bank, Israel is only to evacuate four minor settlements in "Northern Samaria (Ganim, Kadim, Sa-Nur and Homesh)."
With regards to security, Israel will control Gaza completely for "the State of Israel will guard and monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip, will continue to maintain exclusive authority in Gaza air space, and will continue to exercise security activity in the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip." Furthermore, Israel reserves the right to invade Northern Samaria unilaterally because "The State of Israel reserves its fundamental right of self-defense, both preventive and reactive, including where necessary the use of force, in respect of threats emanating from the Northern Samaria area." As for the Palestinians, they are not to have any military of their own for, "the Gaza Strip shall be demilitarized and shall be devoid of weaponry."
So, Western support of Zionism meant that the West created a conflict between Muslims and Jews in 1948. And now Western support of the Sharon Plan is to entrench hostility and resentment in future generations by throwing the Palestinians a thin sliver of land, from which they can watch Israeli warplanes, warships and tanks dominating their skies, seas and lands, whilst having no defence of their own. Such a situation is best described as conflict preservation, rather than conflict resolution.
For true conflict resolution, one needs to look before the era of Western support for Zionism. Under Islam, Jews and Muslims lived together for centuries in harmony. What made this possible is that Allah (ta’ala, praise to Him) has addressed all humankind with Islam in their quality as humans and nothing else, irrespective of their race, gender or religion and forbids discrimination on any basis. As an example, Spanish Jews fleeing persecution in Europe were invited to establish residences, worship in synagogues and acquire teachings in their religious schools within the Caliphate. In medicine, Jewish physicians from the school of Salanca were employed in the service of the Caliph. In industry, many places glass-making and metal-working were dominated by Jews and in trade, with their knowledge of foreign languages, Jews formed some of the Caliphate's more competent competitors to the Venetian traders. Moreover, In Islamic jurisprudence, each citizen, Muslim or non-Muslim, has the right to voice his opinion regarding the misapplication of Islam upon him or any unjust act (Madhlama) perpetrated against him by the ruler. The Spanish Jews, once granted asylum by the Caliph, had Elijah Capsali, member of an ancient and renowned family from the island of Candia nominated as Haham Bashi, or Chief Rabbi, so he could represent the affairs of the Jews before the Caliph. The lands of the Middle East were no exception which, interestingly, the Zionists recognise in their 1935 film ‘Land of Promise,’ produced by the Zionist Palestinian Foundation Fund, wherein they acknowledge that "Once while Jews lived under Islam, it was the centre of a great civilisation."
As for who will right the wrongs of Zionism, the West has clearly demonstrated that it is not interested. As for the present Muslim rulers, they appear to be falling over each other in a rush to praise and reward Israel for the Sharon plan, a key to the realisation of Zionism. It falls upon the Muslim people, with the greatest burden of responsibility falling upon those of power and influence that are sincere to Islam and Muslims, to re-establish Islam as a way of life, so that Muslim, Jew and Christian can finally live in peace again as they did for centuries.
Dr. Abdul-Wajid Siddiqui is a political commentator, residing in Lahore, Pakistan
Contact e-mail: drabdulwajid@hotmail.com
By Abdul-Wajid Siddiqui
In the first half of the twentieth century, Western intervention in the Middle East led to the division of the region along nationalistic lines and, uniquely in the case of the Zionist state of Israel, along sectarian grounds. The sectarian partition of Palestine was not out of compassion for either Muslim or Jew but for colonialist strategic interests that lay in Zionism, whose rights and wrongs did not expressly concern the West, even though this brought forth decades of conflict in the region. And the Israeli regime's Disengagement Implementation Law, aka the "Sharon Plan", supported by the West, is set to entrench this volatile apartheid for the future. However, before Western intervention, Jew and Muslims lived together in peace for centuries under Islam, a fact even recognised by Zionists. All of this should be borne in mind when considering a lasting conflict resolution.
As the First World War drew to a close, Britain and France agreed to divide the Ottoman state into many states, on nationalist grounds, as per the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 16 May 1916. This would allow the victorious Western powers to divide the Middle East into respective spheres of influence. Moreover, through the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917, Britain confirmed its commitment for a further sectarian, division of Palestine to form a Zionist state.
Britain made clear that it was not interested in the rights or wrongs of Zionism and even less about the Arabs there. Britain's Foreign Minister, Arthur James Balfour, after whom the Balfour Declaration is named, wrote in a memorandum sent to Lord Curzon on 11 August 1919 that, “in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country … And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land" [Source: Foreign Office Archive No. 371/4183].
Interestingly, the West did not support Zionism out of compassion for Jews either. In fact, for centuries Jews were regarded as a scourge in Europe, labelled as “Christ killers,” and in the New World during the 1930s, prejudice toward Jews was so widespread in American culture and everyday social life that universities limited the admission of Jewish students through informal quotas and certain neighbourhoods, social clubs and even rest-houses excluded Jews. As such, both America and Britain were quite amenable to facilitate the transport of large numbers of Jews to Palestine from all corners of the Western world as formally recommended on 20 April, 1946 by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.
Backed by Western finance, training and arms, Zionist forces violently carved Israel out of Palestine in 1948, a great upheaval which set off decades of tension and conflict in the region. Both Muslims and Jews lost out, suffering sizeable casualties and entrenched in a siege mentality. If there was any winner, it was the West, which found markets for arms and opportunities for furthering influence through conflict management, in accordance with the old colonialist “divide and rule” policy. It appears that Balfour’s 1919 statement of Zionism being “rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes” held true for Western powers, if not anyone else.
As for the Zionist regime itself, it ensured the success of divide and rule through brutal sectarian apartheid, as borne out in Western media reports. In a statement published to the British newspaper, The Sunday Times of 15 June 1969, Golda Meir snapped, "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist." And the American paper, the New York Times of 14 April 1983 reported that the Israeli Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, said, "We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel … We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours ... When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do will be to scurry around like drugged roaches in a bottle." Fulfilling Western expectations until today, Israel is rewarded with billions of dollars of financial support from America, much to the anger of the Muslim World. Indeed, Loy Henderson, the Director of the US State Department Near East Agency was quite prophetic when, on 24 August 1945, he forewarned the US Secretary of State, James Byrnes, that America would "lose moral prestige if it supported Jewish aspirations in Palestine" [source: Truman Presidential Museum and Library].
Unrepentant, America and Britain have now taken to firmly entrench the Zionist partition of Palestine through support of the Sharon Plan. The Sharon Plan was first described on 18 December 2003 by Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. It was then approved by US President Bush on 14 April 2005 as "historic and courageous actions and then in quick succession by Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on 16 April 2005 when he declared "We welcome the Israeli proposal to disengage from the Gaza and parts of the West Bank." However, just like the "Balfour Declaration", "Bush and Blair’s Declaration" of support for the Sharon Plan is clearly not about rights and wrongs because it establishes a miniscule Palestinian entity which can hardly be described as a state, either in terms of territory or security, as revealed by the Israeli Cabinet Resolution of 6 June 2004.
With regards to territory, although Israel is to evacuate the Gaza Strip it is to maintain "a military presence along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt (Philadelphi Route)" and Israel reserves the right to encroach on even more of Gaza’s territory by adding that "security considerations may require some widening of the area in which the military activity is conducted." As for the West Bank, Israel is only to evacuate four minor settlements in "Northern Samaria (Ganim, Kadim, Sa-Nur and Homesh)."
With regards to security, Israel will control Gaza completely for "the State of Israel will guard and monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip, will continue to maintain exclusive authority in Gaza air space, and will continue to exercise security activity in the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip." Furthermore, Israel reserves the right to invade Northern Samaria unilaterally because "The State of Israel reserves its fundamental right of self-defense, both preventive and reactive, including where necessary the use of force, in respect of threats emanating from the Northern Samaria area." As for the Palestinians, they are not to have any military of their own for, "the Gaza Strip shall be demilitarized and shall be devoid of weaponry."
So, Western support of Zionism meant that the West created a conflict between Muslims and Jews in 1948. And now Western support of the Sharon Plan is to entrench hostility and resentment in future generations by throwing the Palestinians a thin sliver of land, from which they can watch Israeli warplanes, warships and tanks dominating their skies, seas and lands, whilst having no defence of their own. Such a situation is best described as conflict preservation, rather than conflict resolution.
For true conflict resolution, one needs to look before the era of Western support for Zionism. Under Islam, Jews and Muslims lived together for centuries in harmony. What made this possible is that Allah (ta’ala, praise to Him) has addressed all humankind with Islam in their quality as humans and nothing else, irrespective of their race, gender or religion and forbids discrimination on any basis. As an example, Spanish Jews fleeing persecution in Europe were invited to establish residences, worship in synagogues and acquire teachings in their religious schools within the Caliphate. In medicine, Jewish physicians from the school of Salanca were employed in the service of the Caliph. In industry, many places glass-making and metal-working were dominated by Jews and in trade, with their knowledge of foreign languages, Jews formed some of the Caliphate's more competent competitors to the Venetian traders. Moreover, In Islamic jurisprudence, each citizen, Muslim or non-Muslim, has the right to voice his opinion regarding the misapplication of Islam upon him or any unjust act (Madhlama) perpetrated against him by the ruler. The Spanish Jews, once granted asylum by the Caliph, had Elijah Capsali, member of an ancient and renowned family from the island of Candia nominated as Haham Bashi, or Chief Rabbi, so he could represent the affairs of the Jews before the Caliph. The lands of the Middle East were no exception which, interestingly, the Zionists recognise in their 1935 film ‘Land of Promise,’ produced by the Zionist Palestinian Foundation Fund, wherein they acknowledge that "Once while Jews lived under Islam, it was the centre of a great civilisation."
As for who will right the wrongs of Zionism, the West has clearly demonstrated that it is not interested. As for the present Muslim rulers, they appear to be falling over each other in a rush to praise and reward Israel for the Sharon plan, a key to the realisation of Zionism. It falls upon the Muslim people, with the greatest burden of responsibility falling upon those of power and influence that are sincere to Islam and Muslims, to re-establish Islam as a way of life, so that Muslim, Jew and Christian can finally live in peace again as they did for centuries.
Dr. Abdul-Wajid Siddiqui is a political commentator, residing in Lahore, Pakistan
Contact e-mail: drabdulwajid@hotmail.com
