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 2nd 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
5th 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 13th 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 5th to 3rd
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 2nd 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 19th
century which held through the turn of the 20th
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?
|
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.
This platform has withdrawn it's subscriber widget. If you like
blogs like this and wish to know whenever there is a new post, click the
button to my FB and follow me there. I usually intro my new blogs
there. Thanks.