Rita Farhat Mukand
Palestinian land today is so complicatedly divided that it becomes tough to tune out a two-nation reality. Split in the heart of this conflict are three paradigms: Historical, political, and religious making it one of the most fragile and explosive dynamites to handle presently.
While the conflict seems to go back over a century, it is deeply embroiled in a history of forced migrations and brutality. I recently heard a commenter on a news channel proclaiming that the “biggest myth going around is this is a religious conflict while it’s not at all religious.” But the commenter is incorrect in his assessment because while many parts play a huge role, perhaps religion is at the centre of it all.
A brief run into the history of Palestine reveals that it was encompassed within the broader region of Canaan, which housed the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and it was a specific land area within southern Canaan, mostly inhabited by the Philistines, constituting only a fraction of the entire region. The Canaanites, Canaanite-Phoenicians, Israelites, and other groups, settled in the region long before the Philistines arrived around 1276 BCE, establishing them in the southern coastal area, later named Philistia. Mesopotamian texts and trade records from Ebla and Mari dating back to the 18th century BCE referred to the entire region as “Canaan,” while the term “Palestine” does not appear in written records until Herodotus’ Histories in the 5th century BCE. Following Herodotus, “Palestine” gradually became the term used for the entirety of the region previously known as Canaan.
According to the biblical Book of Joshua, the Israelite general Joshua led an invasion, dividing the land of Canaan among his people. Concurrently, the arrival of the enigmatic Sea Peoples around the same period possibly contributed to the destruction of towns and cities, as seen in neighbouring nations.
Abraham of the Jewish Torah, Bible and Quran was born in the Ur of the Chaldees which is modern-day Iraq and he was a rich Jewish nomad who lived in tents. One night, God gave him a promise of a nation called Israel. The name “Israel” first emerges in the Hebrew Bible as the name given by God to the patriarch Jacob (Genesis 32:28). Deriving from the name “Israel”, other tags that came to be associated with the Jewish people have included the “Children of Israel” or “Israelite.”
Over centuries, successive conquests followed, with the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and the armies of Alexander the Great all exerting control over the region, culminating in Roman rule. By then, the land had long been known as Judea, derived from the ancient Kingdom of Judah demolished by the Babylonians. Yet, it was also referred to as Palestine. After the Bar-Kochba Revolt of 132-136 CE, the Roman emperor Hadrian renamed it Syria-Palaestina to berate the Jewish populace, linking it to their historical adversaries, the Syrians and Philistines. Subsequently, the designations of Philistia, Roman Judea, and Palestine persisted.
The conflicts between two groups contending for the same land trace back to the early 1900s. At that time, the region along the Eastern Mediterranean, known as Palestine, became the focal point of contention.
Politically, under Ottoman rule for centuries, Israel and Palestine was a diverse region inhabited mostly by Muslims, and Christians, and a small Jewish population coexisting peacefully. However, the emergence of a distinct Palestinian identity coincided with the rise of Zionism in Europe in the 1900s, advocating for a Jewish nation in their historic homeland. With growing Jewish immigration, tensions escalated, leading to conflicts between Jews and Arabs. Following World War I, the British took control of the area known as the British Mandate for Palestine, initially allowing Jewish immigration but later restricting it due to rising tensions.
The Holocaust further prodded Jewish migration to British Palestine, garnering international support for the establishment of a Jewish state. In 1947, amidst sectarian violence, the United Nations proposed a partition plan to create separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem designated as a global zone. While Jews accepted the plan and declared independence as Israel, Arabs considered it as colonialism and declared war, resulting in Israel gaining territory beyond the UN’s proposal and displacing a significant number of Palestinians, leading to a large refugee population. After the war, Israel controlled most of the territory except for Gaza, controlled by Egypt, and the West Bank, administered by Jordan.
The Arab-Israel conflict persisted for decades, marked by Jewish migration from Arab-majority countries to Israel. In 1967, a war between Israel and neighbouring Arab states resulted in Israel occupying territories including the Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Sinai Peninsula. This left Israel responsible for governing the Palestinians, whom it had been in conflict with for years. In 1978, Israel and Egypt signed the US-brokered Camp David Accords, leading to controversy in the Arab world. Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat faced outrage and was assassinated, partly due to the peace treaty, which included Israel returning the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.
Over the following decades, other Arab nations gradually made peace with Israel, although formal peace treaties were not always signed. However, Israel’s military continued to occupy the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza, shifting the conflict into an Israeli-Palestinian struggle. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), established in the 1960s to advocate for a Palestinian state, engaged in conflict with Israel, including acts of terrorism. Initially, the PLO aimed to eliminate the state of Israel, leading to prolonged fighting. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers began moving into occupied Palestinian territories, establishing homes for various reasons, including religious, political, and economic motives. These settlements, guarded by soldiers, displaced Palestinians and divided communities, exacerbating the challenges for Palestinian statehood in the long term.
Today, there are several hundred thousand settlers in an occupied territory. In the late 1980s, Palestinian frustration exploded into the Intifada, the Arabic word for uprising. Israel responded with heavy force where around 200 Israelis and over 1000 Palestinians died in the first Intifada. A group of Palestinians in Gaza considered the PLO too secular, and created Hamas, a violent extremist group dedicated to Israel’s destruction. By the early 1990s, the Israelis and Palestinians tried to make peace. The leaders from both sides signed the Oslo Accords. This was meant to be the first big step for Israel maybe one day withdrawing from the Palestinian territories and also allowing an independent Palestinian. The Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority, allowing them a little amount of freedom to govern themselves in certain areas. Hard-liners on both sides opposed the Oslo Accords.
Hamas members launched suicide bombings to try to sabotage the process. The second Intifada, more violent than the first took 1000 Israelis and 3,200 Palestinians’ lives. The year Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas gained power but split from the Palestinian Authority in a short civil war, dividing Gaza from the West Bank. Israel puts Gaza under a suffocating blockade, and unemployment rises to 40%. In the West Bank, more and more settlements are smothering Palestinians, who often respond with protests and sometimes violence though most just want normal lives.
The heart of this conflict is religious. If religion did not play deep into this conflict, it would not have been so complicated. Christian emotions run deep for Israel as Jesus Christ was a Jew and the Messiah and the Christians believe the prophecies of the Jewish Torah. The two most powerful nations which are Christian dominated, America and the UK, rally strongly behind Israel. While trails and tales go to Jewish bankers controlling the arena, there is more of an ecclesiastical emotionalism that drives this conflict.
Another group of Christians believe that the Jews called a curse upon themselves when they ordered the crucifixion of Jesus Christ where in Matthew 27:24, it is written, “When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but that instead, a riot was breaking out, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “You bear the responsibility.” 25 All the people answered, “His blood be on us and our children!” 26 So Pilate released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed Him over to be crucified.…” In A.D. 70 and again in A.D. 135, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and scattered the Jews among all nations but many of the Jews maintained their identity as a people.
After the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in AD 33, Jerusalem was blockaded by Rome, led by Emperor Titus. On August 29, AD 70, Rome conquered Jerusalem, destroying the city, and its Holy Temple, with the obliteration of 985 Jewish villages, and the loss of many Jewish lives, with others being enslaved or forced to flee.
Following the death of King Solomon, the land was split into two realms: the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judaea. In 63 BC, the Romans conquered this land, designating it as Syria Palæstina, later known as Palestine. In 40 BC, King Herod was appointed by the Romans, though he wasn’t of Jewish descent, and his rule was never accepted by the Jewish population.
Jewish communities scattered over the globe after intense persecution with over 900 of their villages wiped over. Even in the nations they entered, they endured global persecution. During World War II, the Holocaust orchestrated by German Nazis and their collaborators led to the loss of six million Jewish lives. In 1947, the UN endorsed a partition plan for Arab and Jewish territories, sparking conflict. On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of Israel, a response to mass migrations driven by persecution and anti-Semitism, marking the quest for a Jewish homeland.
Jerusalem operates as a symbol of illumination and harmony for the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, spanning across Israel and Palestine. Israel, a Middle Eastern nation along the Mediterranean coast, is revered by followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the biblical Holy Land. Palestine is the birthplace of Christ.
God, in the Jewish Torah, gives a place for the Arabs. Ishmael, the eldest son of Abraham, the patriarch shared by Abrahamic religions, was born to Hagar, Sara’s handmaiden (Genesis 16:3). He is traditionally regarded as the forefather of the Arabs according to biblical tradition. Genesis 17:18-22: “And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.” However, militant sections of Israelites and some Christian evangelical groups who hold powerful positions in America do not want to acknowledge the relevance of this.
The USA supported Israel in 1948 when President Harry Truman was sympathetic to Zionism because of his evangelical Christian upbringing. He endorsed the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine to create an Arab state and a Jewish state and, despite opposition from within the administration, recognized the State of Israel on May 14, 1948.
Christian emotions are bound to the Old Testament history in the Jewish Torah. A verse in the Old Testament Psalm 122 reads, 6Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you be secure.” Holding fast to the strings of religious fervour, they feel bound to stand with Israel believing it would release the blessing of God on their lives. American Christian evangelists quote Genesis 12:3 where God says, “I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” They openly teach Christians to pray and support Israel and the Jewish people no matter what happens. In this frenetic mindset, the heart of humanity of valuing all lives equally has been lost. This is perhaps why the West has been complacent about the genocide in Gaza until the voices of conscience in multitudes of people around the world arose to condemn the ongoing genocide because thousands of innocent citizens and children have been killed in just six months.
Presently, certain Christian groups are widely sharing a video with mingled awe and wonder of a Turkish MP, Hasan Bitmez, who crumbled in Parliament after saying, “Israel will suffer Allah’s wrath.” He died two days later at a hospital in Ankara suffering a heart attack. They believe he died because he “cursed” Israel. An angiography later revealed that the two main veins in his heart were completely blocked, so he did have a heart problem before even speaking! It is not uncommon for people to die of a stroke or heart attack after giving a heated speech especially if they have heart problems and it has happened in the past too on public platforms.
In ancient times, the Amalekites dwelled in the regions of the Negev and Sinai, where they led a nomadic or semi-nomadic way of life on the outskirts of southern Canaan’s agricultural region and this is the region of present Palestine. The Hebrew Bible considers the Canaanites and groups associated with them—Amorites, Hittites, Jebusites, Hivites, Perizzites, and Girgashites—constituting what tradition names the “seven nations of Canaan,” as distinct people who are to be variously resisted or destroyed.
If the Zionists go by their belief in the Jewish Torah and Christian Old Testament Bible which writes in 1 Samuel 15: “And He sent you on a mission, saying, `Go and destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.” this would signify justification of wiping out a race which constitutes to fanaticized religious programming and misrepresenting Scripture out of context to justify a genocide.
These teachings out of context may have led many Christian-dominated nations to turn a blind eye to the horrific killings in Gaza. The Israelites occupied and conquered Palestine, or Canaan, beginning in the late 2nd millennium BC, or perhaps earlier; and the Bible appears to justify such occupation by identifying Canaan with the Promised Land, the land promised to the Israelites by God.
The danger of Manifest Destiny ideology is being applied in Gaza and Palestine today. This concept was first defined as “the concept of American exceptionalism, that is, the belief that America occupies a special place among the countries of the world.” The Puritans came to America in 1630 believing that their survival in the new world would be a sign of God’s approval. There are Christian evangelical groups in America who believe America is God’s client nation, so they hold a status in the world and are privileged with God. Such a mindset can justify mass murder.
Reducing Gaza to rubble with over 32,000 Palestinians killed in just six months has made it impossible for the two regions to coexist anymore as two states. Without closure and separation, cycles of revenge will mushroom, from generation to generation.
Endorsing the fanatical concept of Manifest Destiny entitlement will enable different world leaders in time to commit mass genocides with no accountability to anyone or anything, not even their voice of conscience. Presently, there is an urgent need for separate homelands in Palestine and Israel. If they continue this way, it is metaphorically forcing a spouse to live with another brutal spouse in the same house to inflict greater harm and pain and trigger generational cycles of revenge. Wounds have to heal and space has to be given.
The International Court needs to legally allot two separate nations as historically, both Arabs and Jews have deep roots in these regions and they even share the Abrahamic Covenant from the Jewish Torah, reaffirmed in the Bible and the Quran, thus these two nations need to be divided logically with geographical calculations protecting the sovereignty of Palestine and Israel.
Rita Farhat Mukand is an independent writer.
