The Middle East-Synthesis
As emotions are running high and opinions are rigidifying, I felt the duty to communicate what I am seeing about the current crisis in the Middle East.I hope this can contribute to peoples understanding and even to an eventual peace although at this point in time,I am not very optimistic about humanity lol
- Free Palestine!
1-Free Palestine from the worst governance on the planet! Even Putin’s Russia and Imperial Japan (WW2) had more concern and compassion for their own people! Not good company for sure!
2-Free Palestine from the mindset of hatred, bigotry and narrow-mindedness that has developed over the years .None of this can lead to a good result. And none of this is from the sunnat of our Prophet saws
3-Free Palestine from the Woke attitude of victimization and return it to the Islamic attitude of accountability. Remember Sheikh Ali Jemal of Fes r.a. “Everything to you is from you”!
4_ Free Palestine from the blindness of NOT seeing the hand of God (metaphorical of course) in everything. Thinking that the only powers at play are America and Israel is a form of shirk. If Muslims need a reference from the sunnat, re-read the dua of our holy Prophet saws after the events at Taif-that he sal called the worst day of his life. In it you will find accountability and humility and NOT vengeance
PS Does this mean I am taking the Israeli side. Not at all. I can and will formulate the critique of its behaviours just as well as any Muslims-better I think lol. But if you re-read the Quran, you will see that we are only accountable for our own actions-not the actions of the other side . If the Palestinians could be free of any or all of these contaminants, my belief is that peace would occur almost immediately! Think about it
Free Israel!
1-Free Israel from religious and spiritual nationalism( the reason I left Judaism in the first place)
2- Free Israel from the lack of empathy ( a characteristic of BOTH Semitic tribes!) for the suffering of the Palestinians
3- Free Israel from the arrogance of “The Chosen People” narrative
4-Free Israel from the fear of another holocaust-which leads to over-reaction!
PS If they did all of that or any of that, we would have Peace within short order. But it is no simple matter to achieve that, for sure.
Myths that need to be dispelled
1-That the Zionist movement is about a group of white Europeans who have occupied Arab lands in a colonialist fashion!
Actually this conflict has been going on for at least 4000 years-ever since the two partners of Abraham-Sara and Hajar separated( we will not speculate here why that may have occurred nor what the marital status of Hajar was,as this is not germane to this discussion1).Sara remained in Hebron with Isaac while Hajar moved with her son Ismail to Mecca .The Children of Sara became the Children of Israel and the children of Hajar became the children of Ismail. And the two lineages have been fighting with each other ever since.
So David fighting with Goliath of the Philistines ( 1000 B.C.) was one instance of this conlict. And when the Israelites under Musa a.s. were ordered in the Old Testament to kill the Cananites( the ancestors of the Palestinians) on entering the promised land, this was also a manifestation of the conflict.
In 70 A.D. the Romans ordered the Jews to leave Palestine.. But after the Muslim conquest under Umar Ibn Al Khattab they came back and have been there ever since. By the mid 19th century more than half the inhabitants of Jerusalem were Jews and 300 years before that they had established the holy city of Safed which was a centre of Jewish mysticism and Kabbala.
So, calling the return of Jews to Palestine a colonialist occupation is either short-sighted vision or simply intellectual dishonesty!
2- Israel as an apartheid state is not really an accurate representation of Reality. This does not mean that Israel has not done and continues to do a lot of wrong and oppressive things. Like chasing Arabs out of their villages before the 1948 war.(It did not help that the Arab leadership encouraged many to leave, believing that they could return after the Arab armies had gained victory).But that doesn’t justify the behaviour. Nor is the REAL occupation by settlers in the West Bank(saying it is the ancient Jewish land of Judea and Samaria). and seizing property in East Jerusalem correct behaviour. All of that has just added fuel to the fire.
One of the arguments against considering Israel an Aparthed state if that the Arabs that remained in Israel are doing better, economically that is, then any of the Arab states around them or those in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has also given some autonomy to the Arab populations of Gaza and the West bank but the latter’s obsession with fighting Israel has not allowed them to benefit from this autonomy.
On the notion of apartheid ( and I credit the Imam at our local mosque for this information) when Umar Ibn Al Kattab allowed the Jews back to Jerusalem there was a condition that they could not be permanent residents nor own property! I get the reasoning. The Jewish tribes had made a lot of problems for the Muslims in Madina. But I think this was a mistake-something that commonly happens when we base our decisions on history- which never repeats itself exactly! This ruling seems to have continued in the Ottoman Empire-up to the Balfour Declaration in 1918.That explains why the founder of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, went to visit the Ottoman Emperor to buy land in Palestine. Otherwise thay could have bought it on the open commercial market. The Sultan refused citing loyaly to another Muslim community. What the consequences would have been,if he had accepted,is a whole other matter.The point here is that if the Arabs are now second rate citizens in their homeland the Jews were also such in pre-Balfour Palestine!
5- The notion in large parts of the Muslim world that the Jews have no place in this land in the first place.
This question was partially answered by point number 1 but let us continue the discussion. It appears that Theodore Herzl ,the founder of Zionism, had a childhood vision of Moses taking him up to see his Lord and saying “this man may affect a lot of people by his words”.Herzl did not reveal this information until he was close to death!- because he did not want to be seen as a religious fanatic.But for the Muslims in the audience, we have been taught that if a Prophet appears in a dream it is really him as Satan cannot take on the form of Prophethood. So there is the fulfillment of some kind of Destiny in the Jews coming back to Palestine. The Christians are convinced of this, as well, which is why there is a lot of support for Israel amongst Evangelical Chjristians!
Then there are the “signs” (referred to as “ayat” in the Quran).The 1948 victory against established armies of Arab states ,the 1967 war, the Yom Kippur war(1973) and all the skirmishes before and after. The Palestinians and the Arabs have lost every one! Is that not enough of signs?! Do the Muslims not believe that nothing happens in this world without the permission of Allah?! Read the life of the Prophet saws. He won almost every battle and the one the Muslims lost(Uhud) was because of the disobedience of the soldiers involved.
To change the orientation slightly, even the Germans and the Japanese ( No slacker peoples there lol) accepted defeat. But not the Palestinians. They negotiate as if they were victors! Wa la howla wala quwatta.
3- The argument that the bad behaviour of groups like Hamas is a reaction due to the intolerable conditions of their lives. And there is truth to this argument,no doubt ! What is rarely said is that the Israelis are also in reaction! Let me explain further.Over the years there have been many propositions from various sources for land-sharing and peace. Let me enumerate a few!
:1937 U.N. proposal of land-distribution( in favour of the Palestinians
:1947 A second land distribution proposal ( more or less 50-509).Response: Arab armies organize a war
1951 King Abdullah of Jordan and Golda Meir are on the verge of a historic agreement.Response:He is assassinated by Palestinians And btw,the Arab street still believes he was a traitor.But whayt I have seen is the opposite.The kings of Jordan are sincerely concerned with their people.But who needs the welfare of the people when you can have never-ending wars to defend your pride?!.
;1967 U.N. Resolution 242 (land for peace after the 67 war)
;1980 Camp David with president Carter (Palestinians didn’t attend)
:2000 Camp David with president Clinton…Arafat left
2003 The Geneva Initiative negotiated between Yossi Bellin, previous Minister of Justice in Israel and Yasser Abed Rabo, former Palestinian Authority Minister.A very interesting report that went into all kinds of details to cross the t’s and dot the I’s!
And these are only some of the many attempts to arrive at peace. The Jews accepted most of themat least as a basis to negotiate .The Arabs refused every one!
So Israel, as well, is in reaction-reaction to an “all or none” intransigence of the Arabs.So when they claim that they don’t have a partner in negotiation, it is not purely propaganda.
The Psychology of the Peoples Involved
Modern people don’t like us talking about Collective Psychology.T hey call it “Racial or National Profiling” and it is considered “politically incorrect”. On top of that, Muslims and religious people in general have no taste or understanding of psychology. So if you find yourself being in either of these categories lol you are going to have to bear with me.But if you listen carefully, I believe you will learn something important that will improve your understanding of the events that are unfolding!
When I first came to Islam, in East Jerusalem, in 1978, I was given a Quran translated into English to read. I recognized immediately the authenticity of the book! However, at the same time, I met the Palestinian people around me. Our sheikh, himself a Syrian/Palestinian had warned us of the people around us and prohibited us from going to the famous Al Aqsa mosque for the first six months after our shahada. He said, otherwise, that we could easily lose our faith if we did so.
Given those realities I had in mind the question: ”Why did Allah give this sacred book to these people?!” I made dua about it and one day sitting on the road of the Mount of Olives, the answer came! “Because these are the people who would most tightly hold to this book and these teachings” Hamza Yusuf likes to quote the historian ,Herodotus,I believe, that the Arabs were the people most loyal to their oaths. That is the perfect quality for the mission of preserving the religion.
However, this same quality of tenacity and intransigence, when it comes to working out a deal with another people and another way of thinking, becomes a definite liability! And we can see that playing out over the last 100 years. .( Just above we have a short list of all the peace arrangements that have been refused Case in point!)
On the other hand the Jews represent another enigma. Jackie Mason, perhaps the greatest Jewish comedian of all times puts it this way: ”I don’t understand these Israelis.They are not at all like the Jews I knew in NewYork City and Brooklyn.They are like Puerta Ricans”(known as some of the toughest gangsters in New York lol).So how did that happen?! The reasonable explanation would be that they are reacting to a rough environment. But Robert Pirsig, one of my favourite authors, in his book “Laila” has another, more intriguing answer. He claims, and I believe it wholeheartedly ,that our environmental penetrates into our psyche.So he explains how the Americans that came to America with Christian values of piety and compassion became so violent.He believes they imbibed the violence of the indigenous tribes around them. Intriguing.But once again politically incorrect.In that vein ,the Jews who came to Israel became Arabized.They were no longer the passive, shtetel Jews but refound their way back to the warriors of the Times of King David and King Saul.
And so what we have in the Middle East, in essence, is tribal warfare disguised in the terminology of human rights and national affirmation. ”How does that help?” you may ask. Well, if we understand what is really going on, we are in a better position to fix it.If we live in the world of denial and comfortable ideals we end up being impotent, which is exactly what has been happening for the last 100 years!
Conclusion: The Task at Hand
What is going on in the Middle East is horrible. What happened on October 7th was horrid. So is the Israeli response. But if we remain at the surface, as most of the activists are doing, we will go nowhere.
So ,bottom line,what is the task at hand. I believe Allah has presented a challenge to these two peoples: the Jews and the Arabs. The challenge is “How to share this land between the two of them, in a way that works for everyone”. Although our Prophet saws was up to this kind of challenge amongst the Arab tribes like the Aws and the Hazraj, no-one has ever done this in Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs. And they do not have a common leader like the Arab tribes in Madina did.The U.N. and America are both failing miserably at this task. As are the Arabs and the Jews, both trying in one way or another to maximize their advantage and their holdings without properly considering the other. As they showed up in my Istikhara prayers, they are both scavengers and it is leading to self-destruction on both sides!
There ARE examples of this being done successfully elsewhere. I believe , without prejudice lol, that Canada is one of them.The French and English, despite having fought wars in Europe for 100’s of years have managed to accommodate each other in Canada, not without certain frictions for sure, in a way that has given both communities a decent lifestyle. Now the naysayers might point out that it didn’t work out that well for the indigenous people?! But that is another matter. As I thought about it, both Islam and Judaism themselves gained prominence at the expense of the pagans and idol-worshippers in their area.so the parallel is even better than I originally thought!
In all fairness, I don’t think the Arabs and the Jews can do it on their own. But, the Abrahamic accords were a promising start. That is some of the leaders in the Arab world( the UAE, Bahrain and soon to come Saudi Arabia? and Morocco?) are beginning to see that it would be in their interest to make peace with Israel and work together for prosperity in the region. Wouldn’t that be great?!
Obviouly, there are certain parties not pleased with that prospect-most specifically Iran with its proxies and other Islamist groups like Hamas ,Hizbollah and the Ikhwan Muslimeen(Muslim brotherhood) wherever they may be.For more explanation about this obstacle, the reader can go to my article on our blog entitled:”Islamism:The Scourge of the Muslim ummat”.In brief we can understand as Joshua Phillips of Epoch Times pointed out so perceptively,that Islamism is a form of left-wing,Marxist thinking(Remember the Dictatorship of the proletariat lol? Well in Islamism it becomes the Dictatorship of the Ulema as the Iranian principle of “Vilayat a Faqi’ points out so succinctly. And we know well how these theocracies without a proper Prophet or rightly guided one turns out?! And no, neither Ismail Hanniye nor Ayatollah Khameini fill the bill lol
So that is where we find ourselves. On the precipice! All out war or a final Peace Deal. May God help us!
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