What does Sharon want? [Archives:2002/10/Focus]

COMMON SENSE
Hassan Al-Haifi
The Middle East conflict, as much as the Israelis will try to fool the world otherwise, was born out of the designs of Zionist idealists of the late 19th Century. They wished to reclaim the Kingdom of Solomon on the pretext of finding a national home for the Jewish people, who for centuries had been persecuted wherever they settled.
Whatever the mythical argument that is used to back up such claims, it goes without saying that the last place that the Jews can claim to have been persecuted throughout the period of the “diaspora” was the Middle East. In fact, sizable communities of Jews lived relatively undisturbed amidst many of the Arab States. These were not really states until the second half of this century, and they were created out of the random divisions of colonialist countries that suited their division of the spoils as they rooted out the Ottomans over some four centuries.
In fact many of the Arab Jews prospered and were well-entrenched in the economic regimes that prevailed in the areas they lived. Moreover, there was never any effort by the Jews over this long history since the downfall of the Kingdom of Solomon to “retake” their lost short-lived claim to statehood. Even during the Kingdom of Solomon itself, and his father David before him, Palestine was only subject to a temporary conquest by the “Hebrews”, just like so many of the conquests that Palestine underwent by so many other nation, tribes, or empires throughout its ancient and modern history.
Surely history and all the religious scriptures (including the Quran) attest to the fact that the Kingdom of David arose after the Hebrews led by the Prophet-King David (May the peace of Allah be upon him, as he and his son, Solomon are both regarded as revered prophets of Islam) defeated the Philistines, the indigenous population of the land, only to be replaced later by other conquerors, including the Romans and the Byzanitnes.
Thus the Hebrews dont necessarily have an exclusive claim of being the only indigenous people group to Palestine, since the father of the Hebrews and the Arabs, of course, Ibrahim (P) or Abraham, to start with hailed from Iraq. His sons Ishmael (Father of the Arabs) and Isaac (Father of the Hebrews) and their heirs took on a nomadic subsistence.
The sons of Ishmael were fated to be more lucky in finding permanent abodes, whereas the Hebrews were less fortunate, since they wandered, relentlessly, in land that was already inhabited. Sometimes, the Hebrew tribes were held captives by people they encroached upon (such as the Egyptians). The rest is history, none of which ever lends support to Zionist dogma.
Yet demagogues of the mentality of Ariel Sharon, continue to try to convince the world that the Palestinians (the Philistines) are a non existent people, that Palestine was never around, and that Israel, as a state, is a continuous phenomenon.
For some of us, this seems like a serious distortion of history. It may be hard to believe, but this is the type of Zionist dogma, in theory that we see daily on our television screens.
God forbid that, the All-Mighty should ever condone any transgression, or the suffering of any people for the sake of the well-being of another people. All believers surely must submit to the inalienable justice of the Lord, All-Mighty (In fact, the Quran considers “Justice” as one of the 99 known names attributed to the Divine).
Ariel Sharon is a demagogue who misunderstands that people cannot be victimized for the sake of a heresy against the Lord, and yet it seems he is set on proving that there is really no such a people as Palestinians.
While Sharon is only being himself, one is also somewhat amazed at how the United States can be so easily swayed to consider such gross moral misconceptions as solid ground on which to base its current Middle East policy.

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