A La Alaa
By Gerald A. Honigman
A
translation by the highly respected Middle East Media Research
Institute (MEMRI) way back on July 3, 2003 dealt with an interview
with Ahmed Qurei’, aka Abu Alaa, who’s now Arafat’s chief marionette.
Among other things, he was asked about the Arabs’ problem with
having the word "Jewish" placed in front of the words
"State of Israel" at the summits leading up to the roadmap.
Here was his response:
"What
is the meaning of a Jewish state? Do we say…Sunni state…Shi’ite
state….Christian state? These are definitions that will bring…turmoil."
It is not unusual to hear critics of Israel, even some academics,
proclaim, "if Jews can have a state, then why not Catholics,
or Protestants, or Hindus, etc.?" a la Alaa.
Indeed, this was one of Ohio State University Law Professor John
Quigley’s favorite lines in his frequent presentations against
Israel. I had the pleasure, on several occasions in the ’70s,
of following him around while in Columbus and nailing him in public
on this and other issues.
Drs. Daniel Pipes’ and Martin Kramer’s Campus Watch reported on
December 13, 2003 that several additional professors–Joseph Massad,
Erica Dodd, etc.– had also come out very publicly on this matter
as well. It is a favorite piece of anti-Israel ammunition.
Now think about this for a minute…
Someone from England is English, from Poland is Polish, from Sweden
is Swedish, etc. While there are other ways of describing one’s
nationality or ethnicity (i.e. we’re not Americanish), the addition
of the suffix "-ish" denotes this as well. Indeed, that’s
how Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary primarily defines it.
So what’s Abu Alaa’s and his buddies’ problem here?
It’s really very simple…
If they admit that the Jews are a nation or a people, it makes
Arab rejection of their national movement–Zionism–more difficult
to defend, i.e. how could Arabs demand some two dozen states for
themselves while denying Jews their one?
Well, they could…..as they do with Berbers, Kurds, and everyone
else living on what Arabs claim to be "purely Arab land."
But it makes the selling of the argument to reasonable minds that
much more difficult.
So let’s take a closer look at this issue…
"Jew"
comes from the name Judah, originally the Hebrew tribe named after
one of Jacob’s sons and later Judah/Judaea as the land was known
in the times of the southern kingdom and the Greeks and Romans.
Judaean equals "Jew."
When Rome suppressed the first major revolt of the Jews for their
freedom and independence after 70 C.E.., it issued thousands of
Judaea Capta coins that can be seen in museums all over the world
today. Judaea was the land, Judaeans/Jews were the people of that
land.
Now here’s the somewhat confusing part…
That particular people also had a peculiar set of religious beliefs:
They worshipped a totally spiritual G_d, whom no man could see
and who demanded that man live by a strong moral code. The Roman
historians–Tacitus, Dio Cassius, etc.–living at that time were
amused and spoke of this peculiarity in their writings and had
lots more to say about the Jews as a people. We’ll return to Tacitus
a bit later on.
While Abraham and the Hebrew patriarchs lived centuries earlier,
Jews emerged as a people/nation after the experience at Sinai,
some twelve hundred years or so before Jesus. They came to inhabit
a distinct land, had their own culture, language, history–and,
again, their own distinct set of religious beliefs.
The Amarna Letters, an amazing archaeological treasure from ancient
Egypt, show repeated correspondence between Pharaoh and surrounding
Hittite, Hurrian, Babylonian, Canaanite, Assyrian and other kingdoms.
Guess what comes out, among other things, in the correspondence?…
Complaints about invasions by the "Habiru" and "
‘Apiru"… the Hebrews. And the letters date back to just
around the time scholars have dated the Biblical conquests of
Joshua and the Hebrew people.
Jumping a thousand years or so ahead again to Roman times, listen
to just this one brief quote from the many pages the contemporary
Roman historian, Tacitus, devoted to the Jews:
"
It inflamed Vespasian’s ire that the Jews were the only nation
who had not yet submitted."
Do you think Tacitus was talking about the Jews’ "religious
affiliation" or their identity as a people? We don’t have
to ask. Tacitus tells us….Are you listening, abu Alaa? How about
you, John Quigley, Joe Massad, etc.? Look at the quote above again
for your answer.
While it’s true that one may join one’s destiny to the peoplehood/nationhood
of Israel via religious conversion to the faith of that people,
faith itself– while a part of the picture– is still just that…
one part of the picture. So, Ruth the Moabitess became a convert
when she told Naomi in the Hebrew Bible, "Whither thou goist
I shall go, your people shall be my people, your G_d, my G_d."
Note, please, that even here, in the religious writings of the
Jews, peoplehood is mentioned before religion… perhaps a coincidence,
perhaps not.
When Jews were repeatedly humiliated, massacred, demonized, etc.
throughout subsequent centuries, as soon as Napoleon released
them from the mandatory ghettos and granted them citizen rights,
many tried to redefine themselves so that their peoplehood identity
would not cause them future problems.
But that frequently didn’t work either.
"Kanes"
or their counterparts were tossed into the same ovens as Cohens,
and the modern political Zionist movement gained its momentum
because Alfred Dreyfus, "the Frenchman of Jewish faith,"
was still seen by his fellow Frenchmen–including enlightened
ones–as simply another dirty, G_d-killing Jew.
The late 19th century Dreyfus Affair opened another assimilated
Jew’s eyes, those of Theodore Herzl, who subsequently wrote Der
Judenstat–The Jewish State– in response.
It is indeed ironic when Arabs such as Abu Alaa and their supporters
bring this identity issue up. As usual, they rely on the innocent
ignorance of most of their audience on such matters.
Consider, for example, how you identify an "Arab."
Because of their widespread conquests and forced Arabization (still
going in places like North Africa, where the once majority Berbers’
language and culture have largely been outlawed; in the Sudan,
where millions of Blacks have been killed, enslaved, etc. resisting
this; the gassings, massacres, and such in Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan;
etc.), the definition has come down to language spoken, paternal
(so to claim the children of those conquered as their own) ancestry,
and/or one’s own actual or willingly adopted identity as such.
Not exactly precise. As just one example of this, take a close
look at the pictures the next time you see "Arabs" on
television, in magazine articles, etc. Frequently you’ll see some
very obvious "Arabs" of Black African ancestry…many
born of slave mothers, grandmothers, etc. Black slaves are still
arriving into Arab lands via the Sudan, etc. And these are the
folks who speak of "Zionist racism" and who have been
able to sell this to much of the world.
So there’s no purity of blood, genes, and/or nation demanded for
the Arabs’ own collective self-definition (even though there are
ethnically pure Arabs).
Last but not least, Islam is the forcibly imposed official religion
of state of virtually all of the almost two dozen Arab states
that exist so far. Check out their constitutions, etc. And they
let it be known in those same documents that the states are "Arab"
as well–despite the blurriness of what that term really means
and the presence of often millions of native non-Arabs in those
lands. Yet this does not stop those like Mr. Qurei’ from raising
such issues of identity with the sole, microscopic state of the
Jews.
The reality is that this is just the latest chapter in the Arabs’
perpetual campaign to deny Jews their one, sole state and to delegitimize
Israel.