About Israel and Palestine

The origin and development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over two thousand years

The United States was attacked by Arab terrorists, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which Arab Islamic extremist forces and the United States were at odds with each other, became one of the focuses of the news. Many people don’t understand why the United States “favors” Israel, and where does the conflict between Israel and Palestine come from?

It’s a long story. This is due to the Jewish Restoration Movement (also known as Zionism: Mount Zion is located in Jerusalem. It is said that the ancient Jewish king David built the Jewish temple on Mount Zion. There is only a section of the Wailing Wall at the present site. Mount Zion is regarded as a holy mountain by the Jews and has therefore become a symbol of the restoration of the Jewish people.

The Jews have been persecuted for more than a thousand years

The Jewish nation is a very ancient nation, and it is probably the nation with the most tragic fate in human history. The world knows that Hitler massacred 6 million Jews during World War II, but few people know that the Jews had been persecuted for more than a thousand years before that, and they had been massacred countless times. Restoration is their last resort in despair. The Jews were expelled from Palestine after the massacre of 1.5 million people by the Roman Empire in the 2nd century AD and began to disperse in various European countries.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are religions of the same origin, and all three religions worship the same God. But since the Middle Ages, for more than a thousand years, Jews have been regarded as heretics and Christian killers by European Christian societies and have been discriminated against, isolated, and faced with wave after wave of anti-Semitism and massacres. At that time, Jews were equal to untouchables and were regarded as "moral lepers". They were not allowed to mix with Christians. They were forced to concentrate in the "ghetto" (ghetto), a Jewish ghetto. Some countries even required Jews to go out. They must be humiliated and segregated by wearing a conspicuous yellow badge.

The French Revolution liberated the Jews for the first time

The first emancipation of the Jews was the French Revolution in the 18th century. Based on the spirit of equality, freedom, and fraternity, French Jews obtained equal civil rights for the first time. Napoleon's army broke through the Jewish ghettos in various Western European countries and liberated the Jews. However, after the French Revolution, anti-Semitism made a comeback in Europe. Countries such as Germany, Austria, and Italy revoked the rights granted to Jews during the Napoleonic era, and Jews in some countries were driven into ghettos. At that time, a German anti-Semite openly advocated that the Jews should be completely exterminated, their women sent to brothels, and their children sold as slaves to the British in the West Indies. The situation of Jews in Eastern Europe has never improved. In the first half of the 19th century, Russia launched the largest anti-Jewish massacre before the German Nazis. It spread to Poland, Romania and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Jews were shed in rivers. Historians pointed out that this "Jewish massacre" massacre killed tens of thousands of Jews.

It was this Holocaust that contributed to the rise of Zionism. At that time, a group of Russian Jewish intellectuals wrote books and pointed out that if the Jews wanted to be completely liberated, they could no longer rely on others to wait for the rulers of their host countries to liberate themselves. In order to save themselves, they must establish their own nation-state. However, the Western European Jewish elites who were in better circumstances at that time advocated integrating into mainstream European society. They converted to Christianity one after another in order to gain a ticket into European civilization. For example, the famous German Jewish poet Heine converted to Christianity after a painful struggle. However, the cruel reality of the post-Napoleonic era soon dashed the hopes of many elites to integrate into Europe, and the Zionist movement gained strength and gave birth to Theodor Herzl, the "Father of Zionism."

Herzl was a famous writer and journalist in Vienna. He was born into a wealthy Hungarian Jewish businessman family. He originally regarded himself as a "half-Jew" who had been assimilated in Europe. However, in 1894, the Jewish captain and soldier in France happened. The unjust case in which Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment changed him. Although Zola, a conscientious writer, spoke uprightly and shouted "I protest", during the trial, the whole of France was filled with shouts of "Kill the Jews" and "Jews get out". Herzl, who went to France for an interview, witnessed this scene with his own eyes and was deeply moved. He felt sadly that all this happened in "modern, civilized France - France a hundred years after the Declaration of Human Rights was issued." He believed that since Europe was the most powerful country at that time, If France, which advocates fraternity, is like this, then Europe is no longer a place where Jews have always lived, and the only way out for the Jews is to return to Palestine and establish their own nation-state.

With Herzl's hard lobbying, the worldwide Zionist Movement Organization was established, with Herzl as its chairman. until his death in 1904.

Although the Zionist movement has gained momentum, there are still differences of opinion among the Jews regarding the restoration of the nation. Hitler's genocidal massacre of the Jews after he came to power finally turned the last batch of Europeanized Jews into fanatical Zionists, including Einstein, Nobel Prize winner Fritz Haber, and the famous painter Lieberman. These Jewish elites were world-renowned, but they were also persecuted when the Nazis came to power. Einstein's theory of relativity was even denounced as "Jewish physics." By 1945, almost all Jews in the world had gathered around Jewish nationalism and Zionism. under the banner.

In Chinese political terms, the Zionist movement is the Jewish movement to fight against oppression and seek liberation. Therefore, Chinese public opinion is sympathetic and supportive of the Zionist movement. Sun Yat-sen wrote to the leaders of the Zionist movement in 1920, saying, "I am full of sympathy for this movement, one of the largest movements in our time. All democracy-loving people will certainly help and help you revive your great and long-established nation. Support. "During China's Anti-Japanese War, some Chinese politicians even mentioned setting aside a piece of land in China to donate to the suffering Jews as a national home for the Jewish ghetto.

The truth about the massacre of Jews after the war shocked the world and awakened the conscience of the world. Except for Arab countries, the whole world supported the establishment of a Jewish state, including the Soviet Union, which had firmly opposed it before the war. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations passed a resolution in Palestine to establish a Jewish state and a Palestinian state.

The Jews initially had several options for establishing their own nation-state and where to build it: return to Palestine and establish a new country in Uganda in East Africa or Argentina in South America. However, in 1904, the Sixth World Jewish War At the National Restoration Conference, they finally chose to return to their homeland. These founding fathers never imagined that their new country would be trapped in a violent conflict with its surrounding Arab neighbors that lasted for nearly a century with no way out.

They are of the same blood as the Arabs

Jews and Arabs are of the same blood as the Semitic peoples of the Arabian Peninsula. The term anti-Semitism actually includes the rejection of Arabs. Inside. In the long medieval era, Muslims were far more tolerant than Christians. In places ruled by Islam, Jews were regarded as descendants of King David and were rarely discriminated against. Jews and Muslims who stayed in their homeland have always lived in peace with little disputes. History: When the Zionist movement emerged in the 19th century, Palestine was a province of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Most of the residents were Islamic farmers, and there were some Arab Christians and native Jews in the cities. At this time, those who immigrated to Palestine were mainly Eastern European Jews who were in a dangerous situation. The foundation established by the Zionist movement funded the purchase of land for them to help them settle down and live a happy life. They were still in peace with their Arab neighbors. After the outbreak of World War I, the British mandated Palestine. In 1917, British Foreign Minister Balfour sent a letter to the Zionist leaders on behalf of the British government to support the establishment of a Jewish state. Known as the Balfour Declaration, this was the first international document recognizing the Jewish state. However, with the continuous immigration of European Jews and the economic development and prosperity of Jewish settlements (before World War II, Palestine had become the most economically developed region in the Middle East), conflicts between Jewish immigrants and Arab Muslims began to emerge. . The first Arab-Jewish riots occurred in 1920. But before Hitler came to power, the number of Jewish immigrants to Palestine was not large.

The wave of Jewish refugees after Hitler came to power

After Hitler came to power in 1933, the Jews in Europe faced the catastrophe of genocide. At this time, those who went to Palestine were no longer immigrants, but refugees fleeing for their lives. This is the first major refugee wave in modern world history. But at that time, under pressure from Arab countries, Britain imposed strict restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine and the purchase of land to settle down. There was even a Palestinian Muslim leader, Hajja Amin Al-Husani, who went to Germany to negotiate the future of Palestine with Hitler, who wanted to kill the Jews. But Jewish organizations around the world and European humanitarian groups reached out to help Jewish refugees escape to Palestine in various ways. Many Jews passed through many checkpoints, climbed over the Alps, traveled thousands of miles to the coast of Western Europe, and then took ships across the ocean to Palestine.

I have seen a documentary. When these Jewish refugees arrived in Palestine, the British army did not allow them to go ashore and flushed them with water hoses. Some people risked jumping into the water and swimming to the shore. The scene is really miserable. During World War II, 6 million Jews were massacred across Europe, accounting for one-half of all European Jews. When the war just ended, many Jews were still in concentration camps. Some Polish Jews tried to return to their former homes, but they were ostracized by their neighbors, and some were even killed by their neighbors. There were 3 million Jews in Poland before the war, and as many as 1.5 million died in concentration camps. After the war, there were very few Jews left in Poland.

The five Arab countries declared war on the day after the founding of the country.

On May 14, 1948, the British mandate ended, and Jewish Israel declared its official founding in accordance with United Nations resolutions. The Chinese Communist Party who were still in Yan'an at that time expressed their support. The "Jizhong Herald" editorial in the North China Liberated Area cheered for this, "The new Jewish state named Israel was proclaimed on the 14th. It has been wandering everywhere without a motherland for two thousand years. The Jewish people, who had suffered humiliation and massacre, began to realize their desire to establish a Jewish state." But the Arab countries refused to recognize it. The day after the founding of the state of Israel, five Arab countries, namely Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, formed an alliance and declared war on Israel, intending to wipe the new country off the map. But the result was that Israel defeated and occupied a large area of ??Arab land, and 960,000 Palestinians fled their homes. This was the beginning of the first Middle East war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the origin of Palestinian refugees. Israel and Arab countries have fought five wars in the Middle East, three times by Israel and two by Arab countries. In every war, Israel wins, occupying more land and creating more refugees. The unkindness of both sides also creates more hatred.

History tells us: First, the Arab countries were the first to violate United Nations resolutions. The entire Arab world has never recognized Israel's right to exist. The pan-Arabism that emerged after World War II has always wanted to uproot Israel, a foreign country in the Arab world. Second, radical Islamic organizations even use terrorist means to prevent Arab countries from reconciling with Israel.

In 1978, Egyptian President Shaada finally faced the reality that Arabs in Palestine must live peacefully with the Jews, signed the Camp David Peace Agreement with Israel, and recognized the state of Israel. Israel exchanged land for peace and returned the occupied Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. But the rational Shada was assassinated by radical Arabs in 1981. Some Middle East experts believe that Israel's incomparable strength in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its insistence on using violence for violence, and its frequent preemptive wars may be one of the factors that have allowed it to stand firm in the hostile Arab sea for half a century without overturning.

The United States is the second Jewish homeland

Another factor is the American factor. Before the 20th century, Europe was the main homeland of the Jews, with 12 million Jews. At present, the world's Jews are mainly distributed in Israel (about 5 million in 2001) and the United States (in the 1990s, the United States had more than 6 million Jews, even more than Israel). It can be said that the United States is the second national home of the Jews. This determines the emotional bias of the United States in the Israeli conflict. This bias is an innate human nature, just as the Chinese are particularly concerned about the fate of overseas Chinese.

Jews began to immigrate to the United States in the 17th century. In the Old World they were persecuted and bullied, but in the liberal atmosphere of the New World they gained equal civil rights. The founding father of the United States, Washington, made it clear to the Jewish community that he opposed anti-semitism. He said, "We do not approve of bigotry, nor do we aid persecutors." Therefore, the United States became another new world for European Jews, other than Palestine, to escape persecution and seek freedom. It was also the only place of escape before the rise of the Zionist movement. In the first half of the 19th century, the German Jewish poet Heine strongly advocated Jewish immigration to the United States. He said that for the sake of all freedom-loving peoples, including Jews, the United States must become a safe haven for those fleeing European oppression.

In the 19th century, Isaac Wise, a Reform Jewish leader from Czech Bohemia, fell in love with the country when he first arrived in the United States and was full of praise for the freedom and equality of opportunity in the United States. He said that the United States is the Jewish Mount Zion, and Washington is the Jewish Jerusalem.

Thus, with every anti-Semitic upsurge in the Old World, there will be a great wave of Jewish immigration to the New World.

Although there have been anti-Semitic waves in American society, the overall environment is tolerant and free. Jews live and work in peace and contentment here. Through their struggle and wisdom, they have not only integrated into the mainstream of the United States with fair opportunities, but also achieved success in all walks of life. An outstanding achievement. |Some European leftists today accuse the United States of favoring Jews in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But have they ever thought about the opposite question; why did the persecuted people expelled from Europe gain freedom and dignity in the United States? The world only says that Israel is domineering, but in the vast and hostile Arab world, the population of the five Arab countries that declared war on Israel in the first Middle East War alone has exceeded 100 million, and there are also many Islamic extremists who are willing to kill all the Jews without hesitation. , who knows the security fear in the hearts of 5 million Jews. Moreover, although Israel insists on using violence for violence, it rarely kills innocent people indiscriminately. For example, in the latest round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, when Israel retaliated with Palestinian armed shelling after being attacked by suicide bombers, it also broadcast in advance to notify nearby residents to evacuate.

If history could be rewritten, I think it would be a wrong choice for the Jews to return to Palestine and restore their country! If they had known today, they would have cut off their longing for their homeland and fled to a new continent that would treat them well. If so, will they still have half a century of nightmares from which to wake up and have to arm themselves? Yes, the United States has long supported Israel. But without support, wouldn’t Israel have been trampled by the Islamic army on an isolated island in the vast Arabian ocean?

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a cross that the United States bears. The United States defends Israel, but it has also worked tirelessly to mediate peace in the Middle East for decades. Israel and Egypt reconciled in 1978, and Israel and Palestine signed a peace agreement in 1993 and recognized each other. They were all the results of American mediation. This half-century has been muddy in the United States. At that time, what did other major powers in the world do, and what did Europe, the initiator of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, do? Now, both Israel and Palestine have returned to the basics of the 1947 United Nations Partition Resolution. Half a century of disputes and conflicts have only shed countless blood in vain, but there is still a long way to go to eliminate the hatred that has accumulated for an entire century.

Perhaps during more than a thousand years of persecution, the Jews developed a deep sense of national tragedy, a strong sense of being surrounded and persecuted, and reacted too rigidly to the hostility around them, even lacking flexibility. The wisdom of means and compromise ignores the survival rights of others while emphasizing the security of one's own survival. This time, the United States was attacked by a terrorist attack, and more than 6,000 people were killed. Their blood can be said to be shed for Israel. Can the blood bring new enlightenment to this suffering and highly intelligent nation? The Jews have always had clear grudges. How will they repay the United States for the sacrifices it has made for them?