RE: Cry for Palestine - Meanderings Collection
this definitely belongs under the "creative writing" tag.
Id be very interested to hear why you describe the entire area that is now occupied by the state of israel as "palestinian land". Jews have lived in that area since biblical times. The area had a sizable jewish population well before world war II and even in the 15th to 19th centuries.
The land was never governed by palestinians. It was ruled by the ottoman empire (and later non imperial turkey), from the 16th century until WWI, then by the UK until the 47 partition plan. Before turkey, it was controlled by egypt. Before that, rome. Before that, persia. Before that, Jews. Are you saying that it was palestinian land before 1946 because some palestinians lived there (but never had an established state and never represented a majority of the inhabitants),alongside jews, arabs, persians, kurds, turks and many other ethnic groups?
Also, i notice that you offer no explanation for the decrease in size of palestine in your map in 1948 and 1967.
The reality is that both times, Isreal took this land after it was used to mount a massive, from-every-side surprise attack invasion of israel.
As I said, it was inspired after watching a show, showing the suffering of the refugees in a tiny walled in camp not allowed to leave. They also showed a map similar to this one. I know the turmoil here runs deep yes since biblical times. However I wrote it based of that one show not the complete history. I don't know why just started typing and that came out...
Yes God sent Moses and his people from Egypt and gave them Israel.
It is true that in biblical times there was no such thing as Palestinians, the area was inhabited by the forefathers of the Abraham religions, the Jews. A few hundred years later Islam was founded and made its way all through the middle east and Arabs began to build an identity for themselves. Islam, like Christianity, builds on the holy books of Judaism. The Jews of biblical times aren't the ancestors of the white European Jews that flooded into that land after the Holocaust and ww2, they are more likely the ancestors of the poor souls stuck behind that apartheid wall.
This is a very creative (and patently incorrect) take on the ethnic history of the Middle East. Its also more than a little offensive to an Ashkenazi like me.
Yes, ashkenazi are decended from the line of abraham and jacob. No, we aren't light skinned because we interbred with light-skinned europeans, and somehow lost our heritage in the process. That is an abborhent racist myth, and its been conclusively disproven by genetic testing.
In biblical times, the middle east had people with many different skin colors. It had light skinned people like me, it had black people, and it had bronze and olive skinned people who probably looked a lot like southern italians and or present day arabs.
For example, an examination of king tut's remains indicate that he may have had african features. An examination of Ramses II's remains indicate that he probably had red, wavy hair. Mohammad is described as having what we would probably consider arab features today. His uncle abu lahab, was called "the father of flame" because of his red flushed appearance. That is to say, he was fair complected.
The dark skin color of present day arabs, persians and sephardic jews comes from migration and interbreeding of many different skin types and ethnicities.
Jacob and Esau were twins. Biblical myth holds that Jacob's decendents were the jews, and Easu's the arabs.
Esau is described as having been born "red all over" and being covered in red hair. In fact, his people were called the edomites, which means "red people". There is no physical description ever given of jacob (except that he was less hairy than his brother), but we can assume that even if jacob was very dark skinned, he would have at least potentially had recessive light-skinned genes.
King david was also described as having a "ruddy complexion and fair countenance"
I wasn't trying to say that white Jews have lost their heritage, or even necessarily that they didn't have any ancestors from the middle east.
The truth is, biblical times were so long ago that we can't have any perfect idea of who inhabited it and what color they were, but it's really not important.
The fact is that before WW2 and Zionism there were Arabs on that land and if you go there today the Arabs have been pushed back and trapped into a comparatively small piece of land now called Palestine.
I'd also like to point out that you called the very idea of Jews getting their skin color from interbreeding a racist myth but you claimed that modern Arabs got their skin color from interbreeding.
The only thing I said that could be "patently incorrect" is that the Jews of biblical times aren't the ancestors of the white European Jews. The truth is that the Jews of biblical times are the ancestors of people from many different ethnic backgrounds.