by Yoram Getzler The people known today as Jews are the same people who in antiquity were known as the Children of Israel, the People of Israel and/or the Tribes of Jacob.
They, like the natives of the Americas, Australia and other places in the world were invaded, ravaged, expelled, exiled and otherwise dispossessed of their homes by cruel and violent Europeans.
A fundamental difference is that tho the Jews were not formally exiled, they were attacked for revolting against the rule of Rome who rejected their right to worship as they wished. Then those who survived the battles, were sold as slaves and scattered far and wide by these violent and cruel Europeans.They were scattered to both the eastern and western extremities of the Roman empire…and to all the corners of the ancient pagan world which were later conquered by the armies of Islam.
The second significant difference is that the Jews maintained sufficient cohesion and consciousness to to maintain the awareness of their corporate body, each limb in communication with the other. Over both time and space.
The third difference is that as an integral part of our corporate consciousness the/we Jews continued to remember and long for our ancient homeland.
And finally, over all these years and all the distance traversed, roamed and traveled we were able to mount a successful campaign to return to our ancient home, only to find others occupying it.
I know of only one other such incident in human history, where an exiled people were able to return to their geographic source.
*(PLEASE; If you know of any other historic incident like this, please let me know!)*
This is somewhat the same process of events that occurred on an obscure island in the western Pacific, Saipan, about a thousand miles south east of the Japanese islands. The island was “discovered” by the Spaniard Magellan in 1521. Two hundred years later the native, Chamoros people, were taken to the island of Guam to work the Spanish sugar plantations. During the period they were on Guam, the Carolinians from the islands of Satawal & neighboring Tinian, finding an empty island, settled Saipan themselves. When the Chamoros returned, they found others living in their homes, farming their agricultural plots, drinking from their wells. Just like when the Jews returned to their homeland and found Arabs living there.
Now dear American, to better understand the challenge the Arabs of Palestine faced and continue to face, let us imagine a native American, a child of the indigenous peoples knocking at the door of your home. You, whose parents or grandparents with great difficulty immigrated from the “old country” to America long after the natives were conquered and resettled in exile on “reservations”.
Now in 2011 this son of the (long gone, out of view, out of mind) native people declares to you that you are living on the lands of his tribe, and that he has now returned and requests to share the land with you and your fellow immigrants. He is even willing to buy the land back from you and your fellow immigrants from Europe, Asia, Latin America or Africa. How would you react. Would you invite him in. Would you show him where in your yard he can build his home? Would accept that he in truth and justice, has rights to “your” property? Could you set aside in your mind the years of mortgage payments which you were told entitles you to ownership? Could you ignore the education which taught you of your privileges as a citizen and land owner?
Welcome to the reality show called the Arab/Israeli conflict.
