ISRAELI EMBASSY’S FB POST : LOOKING BEYOND THE STREET LIGHT

 

The Israeli Embassy made a Facebook post recently which the Singapore government objected and requested it be taken down. The embassy obliged and said the post had no official approval and erring personnel has been penalised.

Two issues the Minister for Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam was unhappy with were:
a. The post pointed out “Israel is mentioned 43 times in the Koran. On the other hand, Palestine is not mentioned even once.”
b. “.. that archaeological evidence such as maps, documents and coins show that Jewish people are the indigenous people of Israel”.

The Minister called the post “insensitive”, “inappropriate”, “completely unacceptable” and “an astonishing attempt to rewrite history”.

In the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas conflict, there has been massive arguments in social media on which side holds the high moral ground as the rightful people of the land. The issue goes far beyond the Balfour Declaration and 1948 founding of the state of Israel into misty antiquity.

When Joshua led the peoples of Moses into the Promised Land, they settled into a northern kingdom called Israel, and a southern kingdom called Judea. Ten of the tribes settled in the Kingdom of Israel and they were known as Israelites. The two tribes that settled in Judea were known as Judeans, or Jews in short form. Today they are collectively called Jews.

Indeed the Koran mentions “Children of Israel” 43 times in different context. Sometimes it refers to Israelites , sometimes it means the progeny of Jacob and other times it refers to the Israelite community generally. Does it include the Judeans is a question for etymologists and theologians. Here are some examples : Surah 2.83, 3.49, 5.12, 7.137, 10.90, 7.105 and so on.

Does the Koran mention Palestine? Not even once. Most will contend the term Palestine (or Palestina in Latin) was coined by the Romans in 2^nd century BC when they named a Roman province Syria Palestina, which covered the swath of land West of the River Jordan to the sea,

But those who betted on the Romans are wrong. There have been much earlier use of names outside of Biblical accounts that sounded like Palestine. Egyptian hieroglyphs mentioned Peleset, a neighbouring people they have been at war with since 1150 BC. Statute of Padisset, dated 800 BC, mentioned trade between Canaan and Paleset.

The Assyrian word for Paleset was Pilistu, first mentioned in the 800 BC Nimrod Slab. A century later, Palistu was again mentioned in Esarhaddon Treaty.

The Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions provide no description of location and are preceded by Old Testament accounts. The scripture mentions Palestims (Philistines), the people that lived in the towns on the southern coastal stretch (corresponding to Gaza and further northern towns of Eshkelon and Ekron) who had been at war with the Israelites. Goliath, the giant that David fought against, was a Philistine. Before you can say “aha”, Philistines were not Arabs. They were a maritime people of Aegean or Mediterranean origins, probably from Crete.

The first written record came from Greek historian Herodotus who wrote in 5^th century BC of a district of Syria called Palaistine which he located somewhere between Phonecia (where Lebanon is today) and Egypt, and covers the coastal stretch and lands further East up to the Judean Mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley, in other words “from the river to the sea”.

Then came the Romans who named their province West of River Jordan to the sea as Palestina, or Palestine.

Whether Peleset, Pilistu, Palaistine, or Palestina, it is clear these were just geographical names in antiquity. There was no race of people called Palestinians. The Koran has it right in no mention of Palestinians.

It follows the Israeli embassy’s post was factual. But we live in dangerous times when factual info can land one in trouble.

The government has generally taken a hands-off approach to social discourse in the public sphere even on religious issues. The red line is where religious issues are brought up to serve political agendas or meant for mischief to steer sentiments. The government’s concern to manage communal sensitivities in a multi-religious society is understandable. That Singapore's Muslim leaders have been mature, responsible, compassionate, and with great interfaith co-operative attitude, is the consequence of decades of nurturing and gains in trust, something all stake holders and government can take credit for. But always cognisant the status quo cannot be taken for granted. Vigilance remains imperative.

Shanmugam’s objection to the selective quoting of scripture to support a political narrative is a criticism of the embassy ‘searching under a street light’. This is an idiom for observational bias often attribute to 13^th century Turkish philosopher Mullah Nasreddin. It means the tendency to look for answers where it is easiest to look, ie look at where the light shines and avoid unlighted areas.

However the Minister’s point that the Facebook post was “an astonishing attempt to rewrite history” actually puts him at odds with history and the Koran.

Back to history. Were there no Arabs in the region in antiquity? The nomadic Nabateans inhabited the area East of River Jordan in the 5^th to 3^rd century BC. Nabateans were of Arab origin who mysteriously disappeared from history, leaving behind their famous cave buildings in Petra. Like the Nabateans, except for the Jewish people, all the other names in antiquity such as Moabs, Hitities, Philistines, Canaanites, have all disappeared from history.

The challenge for legitimacy to territorial inheritance and thus the right to sovereign nationhood is what’s keeping two peoples with different ideologies locked in a life-and-death struggle for more than a hundred years. Online internecine battles on legitimacy to territorial inheritance centred on one side claiming evidence from scripture, and the other on indigeneity.

Many claims the so-called Jews in Israel today have nothing to do with the Jews of antiquity. Well in fact the Jewish genome has been extensively studied under advanced scientific means and the evidence is there is a Jewish signature amongst Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Crypto-Jews.

At the same time, the same group argues Palestinians have been DNA-tested to trace their origin to the Canaanites, thus they actually predates the Jews to the land. This seems unlikely since Canaanite was a catch-all name for miscellaneous groups of Semitic speaking people in the region. Being non-homogeneous, there is no common DNA marker. Leaving the science aside, unschooled Muslims may be shocked to know what the Koran actually says of the matter.

Surah 5:20
And ˹remember˺ when Musa (Moses) said to his people, “O my people! Remember Allah’s favours upon you when He raised prophets from among you, made you sovereign, and gave you what He had never given anyone in the world.”

Surah 5:21
“O my people! Enter the Holy Land which Allah has destined for you ˹to enter˺. And do not turn back or else you will become losers.”

Surah 5:22
They replied, “O Musa! There is an enormously powerful people there, so we will never ˹be able to˺ enter it until they leave. If they do, then we will enter!”

Surah 5:23
Two God-fearing men (Joshua and Caleb) —who had been blessed by Allah—said, “Surprise them through the gate. If you do, you will certainly prevail. Put your trust in Allah if you are ˹truly˺ believers.”

These verses of course refer to the Battle of Jericho where the Jews defeated the Canaanites and entered the Promised Land. Here is evidence Allah gave the Promised Land to the Jews and instructed the destruction of Canaanites. Muslims that put up the argument of Palestinians having Canaanite ancestry need to understand it is at odds with the Koran.

More on the history. After the Romans came the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922). Under Islamic law, if Jews pay a jizya (a special tax), they are called Dhimmis, protected and allowed to stay. In reality they were mistreated as 2^nd class citizens, considered dirty, spate at, treated as lower than animals, not allowed in certain trades, segregated in certain quarters in squalor. When a Dhimmi sees a Muslim approaching, he must move to the other side of the street. (Note that Hitler’s Germany adopted similar practices except the Germans considered Jews mental retards). Discrimination under Muslim rule forced massive diaspora of Jews out of Palestine. This hollowed out the Jewish population, the economy, which in turn also hollowed Arab Palestinians.

Mark Twain (real name Samuel Clemens) visited the Holy Land in 1867 and this is what he said:

“There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent – not for 30 miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride 10 miles, hereabouts, and not see 10 human beings.”

“Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies.”

Mark Twain described a desolate uninhabitable land at the end of the 19^th century which held through the turn of the 20^th century.

The splinkling of Jewish and Arab settlements lived peacefully. They were known as Jewish Palestinians and Arab Palestinians.

After WWI, things took on a spectacular change. Both Jewish and Arab population began increasing rapidly. What happened to cause this change?
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For the Jews, there was both pull and push factors. Zionism, Balfour Declaration and 1948 Declaration of State of Israel were factors for ‘aliyah’, a Jewish term for the ‘act of going up’ (to the Holy Land of Jerusalem). Aliyah describes the return of Jews from diaspora to their land of origin. In more current times, the economic success of Israel is another pull factor. The pogroms in various parts of Europe and increased discrimination in Islamic countries in the throes of nationhood were push factors.

For the Arabs, economics was the pull factor. There were a couple of factors that was beginning to drive the economic engine. First, Great Britain was given responsibility for the Palestine Mandate. That meant bringing in capital and technology to get the region moving along. The discovery of oil in the surrounding area in Iraq and Persia (present day Iran) with refinery activities and transportation across the region enroute to Europe and Suez Canal meant jobs. Labour follows employment opportunities. There follows a migration of Arabs from the poorer Middle East countries into Palestine.

Those that look at scripture and convoluted United Nation’s resolutions to try make sense of the situation, are searching under the street light. The problem is staring at us right in the face. It is all a matter of demographics.

Arab Palestinians see Jewish immigration as an invasion of newcomers they equate as invaders or occupiers. These are easily quantified from government records that breaks down population growth from birth and from immigration.

On the other hand, Arab Palestinians view their own immigration numbers as people with deep roots to the land. Poor documentation of resident list by the Ottomans and weak census by British Mandate, aggravated by the fact immigration is mostly illegal, means unreliable data. Based on the logic of observable link between economic disparities and migration trends, it is beyond doubt the growth in Arab Palestinians parallels that of the Jews, ie. driven by recent immigration.

What seems apparent is a people expert at using immigration as warfare tool, as evidenced all over Europe currently. The growth in own numbers are all sons and daughters of people who have lived on the land since time immemorable. And so it is represented to the world, any growth in Jewish numbers is a Zionist invasion, and growth from Arab immigration are indigenous Palestinians. Therein the case for a Palestinian instead of Israeli, state.

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