Israel - Part 1: An Attempt to Correct Some Misinformation
I’ve got several things to write about, but I feel like I have to start with saying some things about Israel. There is a lot of significant misinformation out there about both history and demographics, which I think is important background to understanding what is going on now. I’ll write a more personal entry a little later on.
1. Despite the destructions of the first and second temples and the associated exiles, there have always been Jews who remained in the land of Israel. Prior to roughly the fourth century CE, Jews were the demographic majority in the region. After a series of invasions, expulsions, and massacres, the Jewish population reached a low of of a little under 1% of the population (roughly 2000 people) in the 1690’s. The numbers varied significantly by city over the years. For example, in 1850, about 25% of the population of Jerusalem was Jewish, while under half was Muslim, with the rest Christian (primarily Eastern Orthodox). But 64% of the population of Tiberius was Jewish and just under half of the population of Safed was Jewish. In a 1905 census of Jerusalem, nearly 60% of the Jews living there had been born there. (This is complicated, however, by who was actually included in the census. Compare to recent U.S. census discussions about counting non-citizens and imagine the dying days of the Ottoman empire.)
2. While large numbers of Ashkenazi Jews did immigrate to the region starting in roughly 1880, the majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrachim or Sephardim (who Israel lumps together for demographic purposes). In addition, Israel categorizes all European Jews as Ashkenazim, while, say, Bulgarian Jews are overwhelmingly Sephardic and there are other groups like Greek Romaniote Jews. It’s complicated. But the point is that characterizing Israeli Jews as European is largely inaccurate. The expulsion of Jews from the Arabic world after the partition of the Palestinian mandate was a major factor in this. There are some significant implications of the demographics. In general, the Ashkenazi community tends to be more secular and more liberal than the Sephardi communities. (Note that, like everything in Israel, the demographics are complicated. The younger generations have a lot more intermarriage between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, which are not reflected well in the statistics.)
3. About 20% of Israeli citizens are Palestinian Arabs. They are primarily descendants of people who did not leave during the partition and subsequent war. There are socioeconomic issues relating to them and their treatment, but many of them are successful and there are a small number of members of the Knesset who are members of the Arabic parties. Somewhat ironically, Israeli Arabs have the lowest rate of anti-Jewish attitudes in the Middle East (according to a Pew Research global poll.) There are also several non-Jewish ethnic minorities, e.g. the Druze (many of whom choose to serve in the Israeli military), the Adyghe (Circassians), who are a predominantly Islamic group from the Caucasus region, and Bedouins. I’d argue that the latter are the group to whom one might most accurately apply the term “apartheid,” but that’s not really a factor in the current situation re: Israel and Hamas. They aren’t exactly treated well in the rest of the region. I’d compare the situation of the Bedouins to that of, say, the Irish travelers. In general, nomadic groups are hugely discriminated against in the modern world.
4. I’ve seen some people claim that the Jews who emigrated to the land of Israel prior to Partition were welcomed by the local Arab community with open arms. This is decidedly ahistoric and entirely ignorant. If there were any open arms, they were holding swords and knives. Some of the larger massacres of Jews in mandatory Palestine include the Jaffa riots of May 1921, the Buraq uprising of 1929 (which includes the Hebron massacre), the labor strike revolt of 1936, the Tiberius pogrom of 1938, etc.
5. Re: Gaza, it was created as a refugee camp by Egypt, back in the 1950’s. In general, the Palestinian Arab community has been manipulated by various Arab states since Partition and used as a political pawn by them, including their expulsion from both Egypt and Jordan. There is no real reason why the money that’s gone to arming Gaza with thousands of rockets to fire at Israel and building tunnels couldn’t have gone to building beach resorts that would attract tourists from the rest of the Arab world. (FWIW, Saudi women really love Dubai because they can wear jeans in the shopping malls and hang out on the beach in clothes that would get them arrested at home.)
6. Which brings us to Hamas. Hamas was founded as the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their original charter, issued in August 1988, was a particularly vile anti-Semitic document, which quotes largely from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian fraud of the early 20th century which propagated the idea of a global Jewish conspiracy. If you can think of any anti-Semitic canard, it’s in there. (It’s also got very problematic things to say about the role of women and several other groups, but that’s an aside.) More broadly, the Muslim Brotherhood has published Holocaust denial and regrets that the Nazis were unsuccessful in their genocide.
Hamas won an election in Gaza in 2006, largely because of corruption within the PLO. They haven’t had an election since. (Neither has Fatah, the political arm of the PLO, which rules the West Bank.) So it’s not completely accurate to say that the current population of Gaza elected Hamas. Nor have they elected anyone else.
At any rate, in 2010 the Hamas leader said that the Hamas Charter was “no longer relevant, but can’t be changed for internal reasons.” One may interpret that however you like. Hamas leader Khaled Marshal wrote a new charter in 2017 which claims they reject the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious, or sectarian grounds. However, they also state that “the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage.” That is fundamentally untrue. Restrictions applied to Jews under medieval Arab rule included restriction to segregated quarters, wearing distinctive clothing (who do you think invented the yellow badge?), and public subservience to Muslims. Under Almohad rule in North Africa starting in 1130 CE, there were forcible conversions of Jews (and Christians) to Islam and executions of those who refused to convert. To give a another example, there were outbreaks of blood libel (primarily in Syria and Egypt) throughout the 19th century. And then there was active collaboration between the Nazis and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, resulting in multiple pogroms between 1937 and 1945.
7. So where does Hamas get its money? Qatar provides a lot of money (as much as $30 million a month at times) but that is a rather complicated situation and appears to be primarily paying for electricity and direct support to poor families. Iran gives Hamas roughly $100 million a year. And they’re the big player this time out (despite their denials) because they’re terrified of the implications to them if Israel and Saudi Arabia normalize relations. And economics is at least as much a factor in this mess as religion is. There are success stories in the Middle East (largely the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel) and there are abject failures (Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinians). As a bit of an aside, I’ve always found it interesting that in the post World War I era, the British managed to get control over all of the places which had oil, while the French mandatory territories were basket cases. (My theory of colonoiasm starts with noting that former Portuguese colonies are, in general, basket cases. Former French colonies are basket cases with good bread and good coffee.)
So what does all of this mean? The basic conclusion is that it’s complicated and it’s a mess. But every Jew everywhere in the world should feel threatened. And, despite what idiots like Bernie Sanders might think, they’re going to go after him, too.
1. Despite the destructions of the first and second temples and the associated exiles, there have always been Jews who remained in the land of Israel. Prior to roughly the fourth century CE, Jews were the demographic majority in the region. After a series of invasions, expulsions, and massacres, the Jewish population reached a low of of a little under 1% of the population (roughly 2000 people) in the 1690’s. The numbers varied significantly by city over the years. For example, in 1850, about 25% of the population of Jerusalem was Jewish, while under half was Muslim, with the rest Christian (primarily Eastern Orthodox). But 64% of the population of Tiberius was Jewish and just under half of the population of Safed was Jewish. In a 1905 census of Jerusalem, nearly 60% of the Jews living there had been born there. (This is complicated, however, by who was actually included in the census. Compare to recent U.S. census discussions about counting non-citizens and imagine the dying days of the Ottoman empire.)
2. While large numbers of Ashkenazi Jews did immigrate to the region starting in roughly 1880, the majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrachim or Sephardim (who Israel lumps together for demographic purposes). In addition, Israel categorizes all European Jews as Ashkenazim, while, say, Bulgarian Jews are overwhelmingly Sephardic and there are other groups like Greek Romaniote Jews. It’s complicated. But the point is that characterizing Israeli Jews as European is largely inaccurate. The expulsion of Jews from the Arabic world after the partition of the Palestinian mandate was a major factor in this. There are some significant implications of the demographics. In general, the Ashkenazi community tends to be more secular and more liberal than the Sephardi communities. (Note that, like everything in Israel, the demographics are complicated. The younger generations have a lot more intermarriage between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, which are not reflected well in the statistics.)
3. About 20% of Israeli citizens are Palestinian Arabs. They are primarily descendants of people who did not leave during the partition and subsequent war. There are socioeconomic issues relating to them and their treatment, but many of them are successful and there are a small number of members of the Knesset who are members of the Arabic parties. Somewhat ironically, Israeli Arabs have the lowest rate of anti-Jewish attitudes in the Middle East (according to a Pew Research global poll.) There are also several non-Jewish ethnic minorities, e.g. the Druze (many of whom choose to serve in the Israeli military), the Adyghe (Circassians), who are a predominantly Islamic group from the Caucasus region, and Bedouins. I’d argue that the latter are the group to whom one might most accurately apply the term “apartheid,” but that’s not really a factor in the current situation re: Israel and Hamas. They aren’t exactly treated well in the rest of the region. I’d compare the situation of the Bedouins to that of, say, the Irish travelers. In general, nomadic groups are hugely discriminated against in the modern world.
4. I’ve seen some people claim that the Jews who emigrated to the land of Israel prior to Partition were welcomed by the local Arab community with open arms. This is decidedly ahistoric and entirely ignorant. If there were any open arms, they were holding swords and knives. Some of the larger massacres of Jews in mandatory Palestine include the Jaffa riots of May 1921, the Buraq uprising of 1929 (which includes the Hebron massacre), the labor strike revolt of 1936, the Tiberius pogrom of 1938, etc.
5. Re: Gaza, it was created as a refugee camp by Egypt, back in the 1950’s. In general, the Palestinian Arab community has been manipulated by various Arab states since Partition and used as a political pawn by them, including their expulsion from both Egypt and Jordan. There is no real reason why the money that’s gone to arming Gaza with thousands of rockets to fire at Israel and building tunnels couldn’t have gone to building beach resorts that would attract tourists from the rest of the Arab world. (FWIW, Saudi women really love Dubai because they can wear jeans in the shopping malls and hang out on the beach in clothes that would get them arrested at home.)
6. Which brings us to Hamas. Hamas was founded as the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their original charter, issued in August 1988, was a particularly vile anti-Semitic document, which quotes largely from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian fraud of the early 20th century which propagated the idea of a global Jewish conspiracy. If you can think of any anti-Semitic canard, it’s in there. (It’s also got very problematic things to say about the role of women and several other groups, but that’s an aside.) More broadly, the Muslim Brotherhood has published Holocaust denial and regrets that the Nazis were unsuccessful in their genocide.
Hamas won an election in Gaza in 2006, largely because of corruption within the PLO. They haven’t had an election since. (Neither has Fatah, the political arm of the PLO, which rules the West Bank.) So it’s not completely accurate to say that the current population of Gaza elected Hamas. Nor have they elected anyone else.
At any rate, in 2010 the Hamas leader said that the Hamas Charter was “no longer relevant, but can’t be changed for internal reasons.” One may interpret that however you like. Hamas leader Khaled Marshal wrote a new charter in 2017 which claims they reject the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious, or sectarian grounds. However, they also state that “the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage.” That is fundamentally untrue. Restrictions applied to Jews under medieval Arab rule included restriction to segregated quarters, wearing distinctive clothing (who do you think invented the yellow badge?), and public subservience to Muslims. Under Almohad rule in North Africa starting in 1130 CE, there were forcible conversions of Jews (and Christians) to Islam and executions of those who refused to convert. To give a another example, there were outbreaks of blood libel (primarily in Syria and Egypt) throughout the 19th century. And then there was active collaboration between the Nazis and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, resulting in multiple pogroms between 1937 and 1945.
7. So where does Hamas get its money? Qatar provides a lot of money (as much as $30 million a month at times) but that is a rather complicated situation and appears to be primarily paying for electricity and direct support to poor families. Iran gives Hamas roughly $100 million a year. And they’re the big player this time out (despite their denials) because they’re terrified of the implications to them if Israel and Saudi Arabia normalize relations. And economics is at least as much a factor in this mess as religion is. There are success stories in the Middle East (largely the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel) and there are abject failures (Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinians). As a bit of an aside, I’ve always found it interesting that in the post World War I era, the British managed to get control over all of the places which had oil, while the French mandatory territories were basket cases. (My theory of colonoiasm starts with noting that former Portuguese colonies are, in general, basket cases. Former French colonies are basket cases with good bread and good coffee.)
So what does all of this mean? The basic conclusion is that it’s complicated and it’s a mess. But every Jew everywhere in the world should feel threatened. And, despite what idiots like Bernie Sanders might think, they’re going to go after him, too.