Erasing Jewish History

Karam

Dr. Issam Sissalem, Educational TV Lecturer, Senior Historian at Islamic University, Gaza:

There is nothing on this land but our history, and all the prophets are our prophets. Abraham, the father of prophets, was an Arab prophet, "a monotheist and a Muslim." [Quran] And Jacob commanded his sons: "Do not die, except as Muslims." [Quran] The Hasmoneans were [also] Arabs from Edom. As historians, we state: All the remains in this land are ours, and we do not want to hear names that the enemy uses.

One of the tactics that Israel's enemies use is to erase Jewish history and fabricate Arab-Muslim history in the land of Israel.

Above we have a well-respected Palestinian "historian" claiming that the biblical figures of Abraham and Jacob were actually Muslims, despite the fact that Islam was not invented for millennia after their deaths. This, along with claiming that Jesus was the first "Palestinian shaheed" or that the Second Temple was never located on the Temple Mount, represent prominent examples of how Palestinians fabricate a false history for themselves as they seek to erase the actual history of the Jewish people.

This is just the kind of thing, btw, that "progressive Zionists" cannot bring themselves to confront because the topic, along with so many other topics around I-P as you can see from our list on the right side of this page, is entirely taboo among them.

The erasing of Jewish history and the invention of a long "Palestinian" history is one of the tactics of delegitimization that Israel faces yet progressives, whether Zionist or otherwise, absolutely refuse to discuss this kind of thing. This is fairly understandable among progressives, in general, because progressives tend to be unfriendly toward the state of Israel, so why should they care?. As for why pro-Israel Jewish progressives would also ignore the erasing of Jewish history as part of Palestinian discourse, it is difficult to fathom their refusal to discuss it or in any way counter it.

I can only conclude that progressive discourse being what it is, Jewish liberals are afraid of being called "racist" if they faced Palestinian politics directly. If they did face Palestinian politics directly they would have to admit that the PA, as well as Palestinian culture, incites hatred toward Jews, steals Jewish history, and fabricates Palestinian history.

They would have to admit that Arab and Palestinian Koranically-based racism is the fundamental source of the conflict and that the conflict needs to be viewed within the context of 1,300 years of Jewish oppression at the hands of the Arab majority.

The problem is that on the progressive-left one cannot discuss the conflict without castigating the Israeli Jews as racists and colonialists and imperialists and racists and just really, really bad people. They can point the finger at Likud. They can point the finger at Netanyahu and Lieberman. They can defame the "settlers" in Judea as evil people, but the one thing that they cannot do is speak honestly about Arab and Palestinian tactics or responsibility for this miserable and never-ending conflict.

Thus they will never discuss "Pallywood" or the recent construction of Palestinian identity or the historical connections between the Nazis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Palestinian national movement. Thus they can never go on offense, must always play defense, and therefore can never really win the argument.

Within progressive venues the game is rigged entirely in favor of the Arabs against the Jews. In fact, even discussing the conflict as a conflict between Arabs and Jews is frowned upon because it reverses the formulation of Palestinian "David" versus Israeli "Goliath."

And that, above all, can never be tolerated.

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