Jack Cohen – Who are the “imperialists”?
It is common among the liberal elites in the West to label Israel as an “imperialist state.” The logic behind this travesty is that Israel “occupies the Land of the Palestinian people.” Apart from the fact that the Palestinian people did not exist in history before 1967 and that they are an Arab fiction derived for anti-Israel propaganda, there is no such thing as “Palestinian Land.”
Just because a group lives on some land it does not give them sovereignty. Ask the Kurds, ask the Aborigines of Australia, ask the Maoris of New Zealand, ask the Native peoples (often incorrectly called Indians) of North America, ask the Blacks of Harlem, ask the Welsh, Scots and Irish. The Jewish claim to the Land of Israel is not merely based on thousands of years of history as recorded in the Bible, regarded as sacred by Christians and Muslims, but on a well-established record of international law.
The legal basis for Israel as a Jewish State throughout all of the former Land of the British Mandate of Palestine of 1922 is derived from the British Government’s Balfour Declaration of 1917 that was included in the Treaties of San Remo and Sevres after WWI and adopted by the League of Nations and affirmed by the UN. No Arab State in Palestine was mentioned in these documents. In fact, there has never been a Palestine State in history and there is no such thing as “Palestinian Land.” Of course, there might be if they were ready to negotiate a peace deal with Israel. But, they are not.
An “imperialist” according to the dictionary definition, is one who controls an “Empire.” It’s laughable to say that Israel controls an Empire. Not only that, consider a list of Empires that this little people, Israel and the Jews, have fought throughout history: The Assyrians defeated Israel in 722 bce; the Babylonians defeated Judah in 586 bce; the Romans defeated Judea in 70 ce; the Byzantine Greeks occupied the Holy Land until 639 ce; the Arabs conquered Jerusalem in 639 ce; the Turks occupied the Holy Land until 1917; the British occupied “Palestine” until 1948; and then finally the Jews took back control of their native Land from the imperialists!
The Muslim Turks and Arabs were and are imperialists. They occupy vast areas of Lands conquered from other peoples and are busy trying to destroy their enemies and expand. They occupied the Yazidis, the Kurds, the Copts and other Christians and the Hindus (see Pakistan and Bangladesh) and they would like to destroy and occupy the small enclave of the Jewish people in Israel. The IS has occupied huge tracts of Syria and Iraq in pursuit of their Arab Empire, but are now being forced to retreat. The Turks are currently invading Syria and still illegally control Northern Cyprus. Who then are the “imperialists”?
