The Scars of History and the struggle for Jerusalem
Which is the most coveted piece of real estate today in the world? Some might say it’s the Crimea others might point to Kashmir some pragmatist may say Svalbard island in the Arctic circle or Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia. But it’s none of those places, The most contentious and coveted piece of real estate is Jerusalem and in particular, Temple Mount an area of just a few square kilometers. But the size of it cannot dampen the value or the aspirations people associate with it. Wars have been fought, blood has been spilt, people have lost everything over centuries while vying for control of this city. But why is Jerusalem so important? Well, in one line if I may define it then, It is the piece of land which the three great Abrahamic religion consider most holy and for humans what, if anything, has ever been worth spilling blood over if not religion. For nothing stokes the passion of masses as their religion does. It is such a tentative yet remarkable force that through the ages many a civilisation have risen and returned to dust but the concept that is religion has not only survived but has embedded itself in the very fabric of society. To understand the context behind the present conflagration between the state of Israel and the idea of Palestine we must first dive deep into the genesis of this multi-faceted conflict and how these violent delights have violent ends and why it is truly a conflict of ages.
Legend has it that this was the place where The First kingdom of Jews was established in 1100 BCE. They had built their first temple on the very piece of land which we today know as Temple Mount. Now to clear it beforehand Jerusalem is coveted by both sides in its entirety but it is this few square km of land called Temple Mount that is at the heart of all the misery and hatred. We shall soon see why.
In 588BCE the first temple was destroyed by Babylonians and Jews were driven out from their land but they returned a few centuries later and built another temple. This was known as the second temple whose western wall stands to this day and is the holiest place in the faith of Judaism. This second temple too was destroyed in 70CE by the Rampaging Roman Legions and from then on to this day Jews have dreamed only of rebuilding their holy temple once again. For Christians to this place is holy as Jesus Christ was crucified on this very Temple Mount in 33 ACE and today the Church of Holy Sepulcher stands there, thus tying the destiny of two Abrahamic religion to a piece of land smaller than Vatican City. In mid 7th century, a new power arose in the middle east which will challenge the world, this was Islam. With a sword in one hand and Quran in another, its proponents will spread the word of their Allaha to the four winds, in 638 ACE Islamic armies of the first caliphate conquered Jerusalem and slaughtered thousands of jews though Christians were left mostly unharmed. In Islam, it is believed that Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven from the Temple Mount and thus the third and the final Abrahamic religion’s destiny too was tied to this piece of land and to commemorate this Al Aqsa Mosque was built by Umayyad Caliphate, in the 8th century, just a few mins walk from Western Wall and Church of holy Sepulcher.
In 1096 marauding crusaders captured the holy city again but could not hold onto it and in less than a century lost it to Saladin the great’s invading armies and thus started the slow yet steady change in the demographics of the land of Palestine. By the late 1800s animosity against jews had become quite overt in the European nations, jews were considered filthy, wicked, greedy, and unequal across Europe. Such was the hatred towards jews especially in Russian empire, that they were shunned from the societies and with no place to call home they wandered and cried for salvation and dreamed of a homeland that was their own. This dream will be brought to realisation by the perseverance of many but particularly by Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, he will endeavour his whole life to bring about his dream of a National Home for jews. He will meet The Khalif and The Pope, he will meet German Emperor and Ottoman Sultan, he will request for support and threaten for it, he will try to reason for it and bribe for it. But alas he will die in 1904 before he realises his dream, but the torch he lit will be carried on by his followers and the flame of this fire would burn down the barriers and set up an edifice that will culminate into the contemporary state of Israel.
The Balfour declaration of 1917, vindicated the eternal struggle of jews, for the first time the British Empire had given in writing that they will support the establishment of a “National Home for Jews” in the ancient land which they once called home and this declaration will forever change the destiny of this land and its people. After the end of WW 1, the sick man of Europe (Ottoman Empire) was decapitated first with the secret Sikes Picot agreement and later with the treaty of Severus. Its lands were divided among the victors and the British took control of Palestine and Trans Jordan. By 1922 Palestine had a sizeable population of Jews though Arabs still dominated the land with 2:8 ration respectively, animosity between the two groups rose rapidly and the riots became frequent and bloodier as the years passed by but the world was too preoccupied with the 1929 great depression and the rise of the fanatical fascism in the heart of Europe. It is ironic and sad that even after suffering for centuries it will still take far more pain and misery and death of millions to finally bring about the state to which jews aspired for more than two millennia.
WW II changed everything, Hitlers Germany shook the world to its very core with its atrocities and The Final solution, no nation no power no group could further deny that Jews have suffered too much and thus in 1947 newly formed United nation passed its infamous resolution 181 which proposed the bifurcation of Palestine, one with 70% Jews and 30% Palestinians, and other with 98% Palestinians and 2% Jews but this was vehemently opposed by Palestinians and other Arab Nations. Despite opposition, in 1948 state of Israel was founded and was immediately besieged on all sides, they fought tooth and nail for their very survival as the memories of the holocaust were still ripe. Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Palestinians all attacked the fledgeling Jewish state. But, none of them had either the ferocity or the want of survival that Jews had, Israel fought a brutal war, in its ferocity it killed thousands of innocent Palestinians, burned their villages, sowed their lands with salt so nothing might ever grow there, they slaughtered Egyptians, they destroyed Jordanians, they devastated Syrians, but the once who suffered most were the 700 thousand Palestinians who were driven out of the very land which they had inhabited for a thousand years, made refugees in the very land which they ruled for a millennium, made to beg for food and roof where they had prospered and reigned. For Israel, this was a war for survival and they called it the War of Independence but there is a different name by which Palestinians remember it, they called it Naqba or Catastrophe. Israel will again fight for its very existence in 1967, which is today famously called the 6-day war. Israel defeated four Arab nations and captured territory larger than Israel itself, Jordanians lost the west bank, Syrians lost the Golan Heights, Egyptians lost the Sinai peninsula, Palestinians lost Jerusalem and all of them lost their dignity.
In 1987, the first intifada took place and the force that is a nightmare for Israel to this day was born i.e. Hamas, a radical faction that wants nothing short of the utter destruction of Israel.
It is baffling yet true nevertheless that when people are pushed to the brink and have nothing left to lose but their lives they still turn to vengeance which might bring more untold misery and pain, yet they struggle for survival by any means necessary until they take their vengeance or die trying.
This was why Hamas was born, as the helplessness rose radicalism rose with it but, as the radicalism won Palestinians cause lost. The problem with hatred is that with powerful it can accomplish terrible but great things but the hatred and struggle of the weak is frowned upon and is considered nothing but a nuisance. Palestinians who increasingly turned violent and fanatical lost the righteousness of their cause that was regaining the land of their ancestors and instead, it increasingly morphed into the destruction of Israel by any means necessary.
The 1972 Munich terrorist attack by Black September further isolated the Palestinian cause and by the time of signing of the Oslo accord in 1993 Palestinians had all but lost their historical prominence. Faith, Empathy, Human rights, Historical wrongs, and Al Aqsa Mosque all took the back seat for the Islamic world. Economic, regional and national interest took precedence over righting the historical injustices, Israel had become too powerful to be dislodged by any Arab nation let alone by Palestinians. Oslo accord afforded some power to Palestine liberation organisation or PLO but that was it, Israel was the regional power now and had the backing of the USA. And since the 1967 war, Israel had kept building settlements in the west bank with today a population of nearly half a million settlers. Thus further eroding any hope for a two-state solution.
In 2006, Hamas won power in Gaza, the preceding year Israel had withdrawn all its people and forces from this strip of land, thus giving Hamas a foothold to further spread its radical ideology, but who can blame Palestinians for supporting Hamas. PLO now Fattah was and is a toothless tiger it had failed them miserably and could not even stop Israel from occupying territory in the west bank let alone bringing about the two-state solution. With just Hezbollah in Lebanon and faraway Iran left to support Palestine cause the situation was hopeless for them. Hamas fought a war in 2009 against Israel with devastating losses for them, in 2014 they again tried with their barrage of rockets, bombings and rioting crowds, their targeting of Israeli civilians won them no friends in the international community while Israel launched a disproportionate attack on Gaza killing hundreds much like the present conflict. In 2018 Trump dispelled the ambivalence of USA middle east policy and declared Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, the so-called Muslim Ummah made some noises but did less than nothing for their Palestinian kins. And thus today in 2021 Palestinians are fighting, dying, fleeing, pleading for help but have no one rushing to save them.
Besides making some noises, for the world in general and Nations in particular, power is everything and self-interest is everything, Saudi Arabia is silent, UAE is silent, Egypt is silent, they admonish Israel but won’t take any action because self-interest trumps everything and supporting Palestinians brings nothing but a piece of land that is increasingly becoming irrelevant while Israel brings trade and commerce and weapons. In geopolitics, there are no permanent friend or permanent enemies only interests.
Israel retained and grew relevant while Palestinians increasingly irrelevant, human rights are only worth as much as the nation to which the human belongs too. That is why thousands die in Africa and no one bats an eye while even the death of one person in the USA can cause protest and call for justice, as far as Europe and India. Today this conflict has become like a proverbial hydra with its tentacles in numerous facets, two-state solution is unviable it would not have worked even before Trump, for the animosity between the groups runs too deep, the mistrust is embedded in their souls. This conflict is just one more example of how religion throughout the ages has done nothing but sowed seeds of discord in the human society, Jews and Arabs, Hindus and Muslims, Turks and Armenians, Bosnians and Serbians the hatred they have, the division they exacerbate, the mistrust they justify all stems from the divisiveness of religion and its blood-soaked history.
No matter how bloody history is, it never kills people, it’s the people themselves and their memories of it that do. What Israel is doing today can it ever be justified? or has what Jews suffered in the past justify their actions today? This is the question I wanted readers to ask themselves, because the story of Israel and Palestine is anything but black and white. Its all grey.So when will the killing stop, when will the division end, when will we stop amplifying our differences and look at the similarities that make us humans first and Jews and Muslims and Hindus later. When, if ever, will these scars be allowed to heal?