Would I Mind Speaking to A Jew?!
By Chadi Serhal
Somebody recently asked me if I 'would mind speaking to a Jew'.
By 'speaking', this person was questioning the possibility that someone with
Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese background befriends or holds an amicable
conversation with a Jew without necessarily discussing Zionist ideology or politics.
I never imagined that I would be asked that by a Jew…
Growing up in an Arab country, the Jews were not our next door neighbours or
classmates; they were the ones who dispossessed our next door neighbours and
dispossessed our grand parents.
My grandmother told me how the Jews had segregated the Palestinians' houses
and villages from theirs and from each other by barbed wires. She told me how
she was unable to go from Yaffa to see her relatives in Tulkarm, Bissan and Haifa.
My grandmother described how the Jews besieged their villages, allowing an exit
for some to flee and warn that they were entering and killing; demolishing homes
and uprooting olive trees. The occupying forces would then roam the streets of
neighbouring villages publicising the massacres through megaphones in order to
terrorise the Palestinian inhabitants to escape their homes.
I always envisioned how my grandparents fled from Yaffa, Palestine, in 1948,
fearing for their and their children's lives. I picture a girl of 16 years
carrying what she could of her valuables on her back as her husband carried
their toddler, and his mother, their infant; my uncles.
My grandmother told me how they took a ship to Beirut and from there settled
in Port Said, Egypt, where they remained until their home was bombed down in
the 1956 war; and in it the keys to their house in Yaffa and all the documents
that they would have passed along so that, some day, one of us would reclaim
their property that the Jews had stolen.
The 'Law of Return' that the just-conceived Zionist state passed, made refugees
of the some 750,000 Palestinians who fled their homes, never to be able to return
to them.
And return where? Their villages and homes no longer exist. History, documentation,
pictures, videos, stories are all insignificant now; all the places that were,
have been reinvented with a Jewish identity and names; scenery and faces.
I always asked my grandmother about her family. She told me that the Jews were
the reason she never saw them or her twin sister again; she said that the Jews
had killed them all because her search for them proved futile.
What was my grandmother supposed to tell me? ...
The crimes of the Zionists since the turn of the last century are conducted in
the name of Judaism and on behalf of the Jews of the world. What was she supposed
to tell me? ... That the people who were responsible for our misery and bloodshed
that never halt are Europeans not Jews?
What was I supposed to tell myself? ...
Islam tells me that to be Muslim, I have to believe in the Holy Books; the Tanach,
or Torah, being one of them. Understanding Judaism then, seemed to be the only
way I could understand why the Jews do what they do to us.
Who are the Jews and Semites?
The Jewish people are those who followed Moses from Egypt and the laws revealed
to him by God at Mount Sinai; as well as others who adopted these laws and
became Jewish by faith later on.
The Semites, contrary to common belief, are not only the Jews; they are the
speakers of the Semitic languages, which historically include the Arabs,
Akkadians, Canaanites, some Ethiopians, as well as Aramaic tribes, including
the Hebrews. The Akkadians, Canaanites, and the Aramaics are some of the
forefathers of modern-day Arabs, but that is another story. 'Anti-Semitism'
is originally a Greek word, whereby 'anti' means against, and 'Semite' refers
to a descendent of Shem, Noah's son.
The earlier Jews and Muslims are believed to be among Shem's offspring; hence
their being Semites.
It was not until increased anti-Jewish sentiments in Europe, mainly in Russia
in the late 19th and early 20th century, that the term Semite came to exclusively
designate the Jewish people, hence rendering them a 'race' in order to justify
and facilitate hostility against them. Some argue that the rendition of Jews in
Europe as a race dated back to the feudal times. But in those days the Jews were
simply regarded as 'non-Christian' and were, accordingly discriminated against.
According to the Oxford English dictionary, the term 'anti-Semite' originated
in the 19th century. Therefore, it is reasonable to deduce that by the end of
the feudal system when the state was legally secularized, discrimination on the
basis of 'race' was sought by the new capitalist order, hence turning the Jews
into a pseudo-race.
These ideas that make a race of Semitism are racist and against the principles
of religion in general [which holds that humans descended from a common ancestry]
regardless whether used by Nazis against the Semites or by Zionists to gain world
sympathy through the oppression of the Jews.
The Jews, the Semites and the Zionist state
The modern state of Israel is composed of almost 80% Ashkenazi Jews and a
minority of Sephardim. The Sephardic Jews are Jews who were expelled from
Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in the 15th century during the
Inquisition that targeted Muslims in Spain mainly; hence converting to Christianity
or migrating mostly to Arab land and becoming part of its Jewry.
The Ashkenazi Jews on the other hand were Khazars who came from a Turkic tribe
from the Caucasus that established a kingdom in Eastern Europe in the 9th century.
Fearing domination by their neighbouring Muslim, Persian Caliphate and the Christian
Byzantine Empire, the Khazar kings officially converted from Paganism to Judaism.
The Ashkenazi Jews claim 'historical' ties to the Holy Land and are the ones who
are currently ruling it, and dominating its inhabitants; killing, torturing and
expelling them. These Eastern European converts to Judaism, centuries after the
establishment of Christianity and Islam, are not Semites by blood or language,
but are the ones who have, and remain misleadingly using the Holocaust to acquire
a 'safe haven' in the land that they claim God has promised them in the Tanach.
The deceit of such a claim is that the European Jews' migration into Palestine
increased and their promise of a 'national homeland in Palestine' was promised
by the British mandate over Palestine 22 years before the outbreak of the Second
World War.
These non-Semitic Europeans are at continuous war against the original Semitic
people and inhabitants of the land; the Semitic Jews are treated as second class
citizens, and those who dare reproach them are branded as 'anti-Semites'.
Who promised what to whom?
According to Nehemiah 1:8-9 and Kings 17:22-24, God has asked the Jews in
collectivity to abide by His rules and desist from sin, and when they did not,
exile was their rebuke. In addition, according to the Tanach, Isaiah 2:4 explains
that it is only with the Messiah's arrival that the Jewish people shall be granted
a safe haven alongside their brethren of other faiths in the Holy Land. Therefore,
according to the Jewish religion, no 'return' of the Jewish people to the land
of exile could be viable as a result of human effort, as is the case with the
Zionist movement, aspiration, and realization.
In learning about Judaism, I learned that Zionism is not Judaism. I realized
that not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews. I saw how the
media in the West are controlled by lobby groups, biased individuals and distorted
views of capitalism. I discerned that the support for the Zionist state is not
in the name of democracy as claimed; it is the voice of money, not integrity that speaks.
Most importantly, by learning all this, it was affirmed to me that the God I
have known and trusted despite all that is done in His name, is not racist!
But what was I supposed to tell this person who asked me if I mind speaking to a Jew?
Why is it I who is supposed to justify himself before a Jew in order to gain his
support for my cause? Why is it not he who is supposed to justify himself and
prove to me that he is a Jew, a true believer; not a Zionist? Why is it not he
who is supposed to tell me that he supports my struggle for liberation and
independence and that he himself struggles to liberate himself from the crimes
committed in his name and the name of his faith?
No, I am not against Judaism. And no, I do not mind speaking to Jews.
If a Jewish person wants to visit our home, we would welcome him and pour him
a cup of our Arabian coffee. If a Jew wants to live among us, Muslims and
Christians and others; we would invite him to lunch and serve freshly-picked
fruit afterwards. But if a Jew wants to destroy our home, take our property
and sell our fruit, then long live the Resistance and God Bless the Uprising.
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