Hi Mark, I appreciate your attention to detail and to history. You give a good overall fly-by of a few of the complexities of the historical development of the various ethnic influnences into modern-day Palestinian Arab identity.
However, there are a few parts of this description that I believe are a bit misleading to the reader.
(1) "However, Arabic speaking Jews were excluded from this identity. Indeed Pan Arab identity developed in opposition to Jewish identity: a key goal of the Arabist movement in the first half of the 20th century was to block the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine." I'm not sure this is accurate. There are Jews who lived in many Arab Muslim countries (not those who lived in Europe), such as Iraq, who identified as Arab and felt more at home in places like Iraq than in Israel. See for example, "Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab Jew" by the accomplished Israeli historian Avi Shlaim (who was born in Iraq, where his family lived for generations). Unlike the Jews of Europe, the Jews who lived in Arab Muslim countries lived in relative peace alongside Muslims for centuries, and they were not supportive of the Zionist project that was spearheaded by (mostly) European Jews.
(2) "There has been a prolonged flight of Christians from the Palestinian Territories throughout the past century. ... Christians have also been leaving all the surrounding nations: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt." By comparing the "prolonged flight" of Christians from Palestine to the departure of Christians from surrounding nations, it is implied that this is simply one example of a larger regional problem. However, the flight of Palestinian Christians (and Muslims) is sui generis--they are fleeing from a non-state in which they have no citizenship, no full rights, severe restriction of movement and services, dehumanizing treatment at checkpoints, attacks and provocations from extremist Israeli settlers, and (for Christians) occasional persecution from Hamas as well.
(3) "Palestinian identity has now become in effect a local expression of the Muslim Umma, the nation of Islam, as Arabism has given way to Islamism." This statement is extremely problematic. Aside from the fact that Palestinians themselves (like any ethnic or national group) are the ones who get to tell us what their identity means, this statement does not square with what was just acknowledged in the preceding paragraphs. In other words, this statement essentially erases Palestinian Christians from Palestinian identity. Palestinian Christians (and their ancestors) have been a presence in the holy land for centuries, and their assertion of Palestinian identity (and their Palestinian Muslim neighbors' acceptance of them as fellow Palestinians) contradicts the idea that Palestinian identity is a Muslim identity.
The reality of Palestinian brothers and sisters in Christ is a precious treasure for the global church, which I wish would have inspired more than a few short paragraphs in this blogpost. Whereas in other Arab countries the ancient Christian presence did not survive Islamic rule (e.g., in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula), Palestine is one those few places where the Christian witness remained steadfast through the centuries, even under the Islamic caliphate. One of the churches that suffered from an Israeli bombing in Gaza (St. Porphyrius Church) is believed to be the 3rd or 4th oldest church in the world (18 Palestinian Christians and 1 Muslim taking refuge there were killed in their sleep). While their ancestors were of multiple ethnic origins, those who today identify as Palestinian Christians are heirs to a rich, millenia-long heritage of Christians bearing witness to Christ in the places where Jesus walked. Our understanding of the question, "Who are the Palestinians?" should be deeply informed, shaped, and inspired by their voices and their witness, as much as, if not more than, the voices and murderous actions of Hamas.
With all that said, I do appreciate the detailed history and backstory that you have provided and hope that readers are inspired to read more widely on this topic.
re (1) I accept that there have been Jews who identified as Arabs. However I stand by my comment that the Pan Arab movement excluded Jews, perhaps not in its original conception, but by the first decades of the 20th century. (I am certainly open to be proved wrong, and would like to do more research.) Also I do not agree with this statement: "the Jews who lived in Arab Muslim countries lived in relative peace alongside Muslims for centuries". Do you deny the contrary data provided by Bat Ye'or in The Dhimmi, and Andrew Bostom's Legacy of AntiSemitism. I also took a very different view in my book The Third Choice. For example I report "a series of pogroms against Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberius and Hebron in 1834, described by E. R. Malachi. Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt had conquered Turkish Palestine in the late 1820’s. When Ibrahim introduced conscription, the Arab peasants and Bedouins rose up in rebellion against his rule, incited by declarations of jihad against him. A revolt in Safed commenced on June 14, where the rebels turned their anger against the Jews for thirty-three days. The traditional jihad pattern of killings, rapes and looting ensued. Some Jews fled naked to surrounding villages. Jacob Safir described the condition of the refugees in one of these villages:
"For three days we did not eat a thing. Afterwards they gave us a small cake for a whole day’s sustenance. We stayed there for forty days in fear of death by the robbers. Our property was taken by strangers and we were not certain that we would survive. We appeared naked, for they had stripped us of our clothing and emptied our homes of everything we owned. They did not leave small items, a door or a window."
Others fled to synagogues in Safed, where ‘They fasted, blew the shofar, and awaited their death.’
A month later, on July 24 Ibrahim Pasha’s soldiers put down the rebels in Hebron, and in that city they looted and raped the Jews, who had already suffered at the hands of the rebels.4 Thus did both sides in the conflict target the dhimmis."
Is this what you mean by 'relative peace'?
re (2) I have a different view. The decline of the Christian community in the Palestinian territory is also driven by Islam-inspired abuses. This is the SAME reason for the flight from other countries in the region. Yes, the specific plight of the Palestinians is an additional factor, but by no means the whole explanation. I refer you to Justus Reid Weiner's "Human Rights of Christians in Palestinian Society" which reports on interviews of Christians in the Palestinian territories.
re (3) I do deeply appreciate and honour the faithful witness of Palestinian Christians, genuine indigenous people in the region. My point is that Palestinian identity has been taken over, politically, by the Umma, just as Arab identity has been been subsumed by Muslim identity. This is tragic. It is a great tragedy that Palestinian Christians are now a tiny remnant, treated as aliens who don't belong.
Thank you for the citations, Mark, those are helpful. I appreciate your concern to document and inform about Islamic violence. I was not aware of that terrible incident in the 19th century; what a horrific experience. My question is how characteristic and common that was in the experience of all Arab Jews throughout the Middle East. I would also want to take into account of perspectives like Avi Schlaim, whose personal family experience and firsthand historical research says that Arab Jews in Iraq and similar Arab contexts did not share the same feelings as the European Jews regarding the Zionist project as something required by virulent anti-Semitism (they felt much more at home in Iraq and their Arab host peoples).
I agree that Islam-inspired violence certainly plays a role in emigration in the region, but it is not the sole factor. From my time living among and serving migrants in various contexts, I can testify that reasons to migrate are manifold. In Jordan, for example, there is much stability and little violence, and so emigration is primarily economic. In Syria, it is not only Islam-inspired violence, but violence from a secular dictator (Assad) against both peaceful civilians and a wide variety of Islamic expressions. The first wave of emigration from Iraq was purely economic due to crippling UN sanctions in the 90s. The second wave was due to democracy-inspired violence (US) against a secular dictator (Saddam Hussein). In every country the situation is more complex, and in the Palestinian territories the other factors should be acknowledged as well (specifically the dehumanizing living conditions in the West Bank & Gaza).
I'm very grateful for your statement of respect and honor for Palestinian Christians. I continue to think one way we can honor them is by making sure their voices are heard, particularly on issues related to their land and people. I would question the notion that Palestinian identity has been subsumed by Muslim identity just because their numbers are small in the territories. Many still live in the diaspora. Also Palestine, like Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, are well known (by Muslims and Christians alike in the Middle East) to have a Christian presence predating Islam. My own experience partnering with and serving alongside Christians in those areas is that, though there are instances of marginalization, they are by and large treated with respect and acceptance by the majority of society.
Thanks again for your response and interaction, Mark. Blessings to you.
Hi Mark, I appreciate your attention to detail and to history. You give a good overall fly-by of a few of the complexities of the historical development of the various ethnic influnences into modern-day Palestinian Arab identity.
However, there are a few parts of this description that I believe are a bit misleading to the reader.
(1) "However, Arabic speaking Jews were excluded from this identity. Indeed Pan Arab identity developed in opposition to Jewish identity: a key goal of the Arabist movement in the first half of the 20th century was to block the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine." I'm not sure this is accurate. There are Jews who lived in many Arab Muslim countries (not those who lived in Europe), such as Iraq, who identified as Arab and felt more at home in places like Iraq than in Israel. See for example, "Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab Jew" by the accomplished Israeli historian Avi Shlaim (who was born in Iraq, where his family lived for generations). Unlike the Jews of Europe, the Jews who lived in Arab Muslim countries lived in relative peace alongside Muslims for centuries, and they were not supportive of the Zionist project that was spearheaded by (mostly) European Jews.
(2) "There has been a prolonged flight of Christians from the Palestinian Territories throughout the past century. ... Christians have also been leaving all the surrounding nations: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt." By comparing the "prolonged flight" of Christians from Palestine to the departure of Christians from surrounding nations, it is implied that this is simply one example of a larger regional problem. However, the flight of Palestinian Christians (and Muslims) is sui generis--they are fleeing from a non-state in which they have no citizenship, no full rights, severe restriction of movement and services, dehumanizing treatment at checkpoints, attacks and provocations from extremist Israeli settlers, and (for Christians) occasional persecution from Hamas as well.
(3) "Palestinian identity has now become in effect a local expression of the Muslim Umma, the nation of Islam, as Arabism has given way to Islamism." This statement is extremely problematic. Aside from the fact that Palestinians themselves (like any ethnic or national group) are the ones who get to tell us what their identity means, this statement does not square with what was just acknowledged in the preceding paragraphs. In other words, this statement essentially erases Palestinian Christians from Palestinian identity. Palestinian Christians (and their ancestors) have been a presence in the holy land for centuries, and their assertion of Palestinian identity (and their Palestinian Muslim neighbors' acceptance of them as fellow Palestinians) contradicts the idea that Palestinian identity is a Muslim identity.
The reality of Palestinian brothers and sisters in Christ is a precious treasure for the global church, which I wish would have inspired more than a few short paragraphs in this blogpost. Whereas in other Arab countries the ancient Christian presence did not survive Islamic rule (e.g., in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula), Palestine is one those few places where the Christian witness remained steadfast through the centuries, even under the Islamic caliphate. One of the churches that suffered from an Israeli bombing in Gaza (St. Porphyrius Church) is believed to be the 3rd or 4th oldest church in the world (18 Palestinian Christians and 1 Muslim taking refuge there were killed in their sleep). While their ancestors were of multiple ethnic origins, those who today identify as Palestinian Christians are heirs to a rich, millenia-long heritage of Christians bearing witness to Christ in the places where Jesus walked. Our understanding of the question, "Who are the Palestinians?" should be deeply informed, shaped, and inspired by their voices and their witness, as much as, if not more than, the voices and murderous actions of Hamas.
With all that said, I do appreciate the detailed history and backstory that you have provided and hope that readers are inspired to read more widely on this topic.
Regards,
S.T. Antonio
Dear S.T. Antonio,
re (1) I accept that there have been Jews who identified as Arabs. However I stand by my comment that the Pan Arab movement excluded Jews, perhaps not in its original conception, but by the first decades of the 20th century. (I am certainly open to be proved wrong, and would like to do more research.) Also I do not agree with this statement: "the Jews who lived in Arab Muslim countries lived in relative peace alongside Muslims for centuries". Do you deny the contrary data provided by Bat Ye'or in The Dhimmi, and Andrew Bostom's Legacy of AntiSemitism. I also took a very different view in my book The Third Choice. For example I report "a series of pogroms against Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberius and Hebron in 1834, described by E. R. Malachi. Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt had conquered Turkish Palestine in the late 1820’s. When Ibrahim introduced conscription, the Arab peasants and Bedouins rose up in rebellion against his rule, incited by declarations of jihad against him. A revolt in Safed commenced on June 14, where the rebels turned their anger against the Jews for thirty-three days. The traditional jihad pattern of killings, rapes and looting ensued. Some Jews fled naked to surrounding villages. Jacob Safir described the condition of the refugees in one of these villages:
"For three days we did not eat a thing. Afterwards they gave us a small cake for a whole day’s sustenance. We stayed there for forty days in fear of death by the robbers. Our property was taken by strangers and we were not certain that we would survive. We appeared naked, for they had stripped us of our clothing and emptied our homes of everything we owned. They did not leave small items, a door or a window."
Others fled to synagogues in Safed, where ‘They fasted, blew the shofar, and awaited their death.’
A month later, on July 24 Ibrahim Pasha’s soldiers put down the rebels in Hebron, and in that city they looted and raped the Jews, who had already suffered at the hands of the rebels.4 Thus did both sides in the conflict target the dhimmis."
Is this what you mean by 'relative peace'?
re (2) I have a different view. The decline of the Christian community in the Palestinian territory is also driven by Islam-inspired abuses. This is the SAME reason for the flight from other countries in the region. Yes, the specific plight of the Palestinians is an additional factor, but by no means the whole explanation. I refer you to Justus Reid Weiner's "Human Rights of Christians in Palestinian Society" which reports on interviews of Christians in the Palestinian territories.
re (3) I do deeply appreciate and honour the faithful witness of Palestinian Christians, genuine indigenous people in the region. My point is that Palestinian identity has been taken over, politically, by the Umma, just as Arab identity has been been subsumed by Muslim identity. This is tragic. It is a great tragedy that Palestinian Christians are now a tiny remnant, treated as aliens who don't belong.
Thank you for the citations, Mark, those are helpful. I appreciate your concern to document and inform about Islamic violence. I was not aware of that terrible incident in the 19th century; what a horrific experience. My question is how characteristic and common that was in the experience of all Arab Jews throughout the Middle East. I would also want to take into account of perspectives like Avi Schlaim, whose personal family experience and firsthand historical research says that Arab Jews in Iraq and similar Arab contexts did not share the same feelings as the European Jews regarding the Zionist project as something required by virulent anti-Semitism (they felt much more at home in Iraq and their Arab host peoples).
I agree that Islam-inspired violence certainly plays a role in emigration in the region, but it is not the sole factor. From my time living among and serving migrants in various contexts, I can testify that reasons to migrate are manifold. In Jordan, for example, there is much stability and little violence, and so emigration is primarily economic. In Syria, it is not only Islam-inspired violence, but violence from a secular dictator (Assad) against both peaceful civilians and a wide variety of Islamic expressions. The first wave of emigration from Iraq was purely economic due to crippling UN sanctions in the 90s. The second wave was due to democracy-inspired violence (US) against a secular dictator (Saddam Hussein). In every country the situation is more complex, and in the Palestinian territories the other factors should be acknowledged as well (specifically the dehumanizing living conditions in the West Bank & Gaza).
I'm very grateful for your statement of respect and honor for Palestinian Christians. I continue to think one way we can honor them is by making sure their voices are heard, particularly on issues related to their land and people. I would question the notion that Palestinian identity has been subsumed by Muslim identity just because their numbers are small in the territories. Many still live in the diaspora. Also Palestine, like Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, are well known (by Muslims and Christians alike in the Middle East) to have a Christian presence predating Islam. My own experience partnering with and serving alongside Christians in those areas is that, though there are instances of marginalization, they are by and large treated with respect and acceptance by the majority of society.
Thanks again for your response and interaction, Mark. Blessings to you.