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December 20, 2006

Strange How PC-Politics Is a One-Way Street

 

 

Is “Palestine” a derogatory term? All things being equal, perhaps it should be. It does, after all, connote a violent and brutal passage and end for the biblical era of Jews in Judea. However for most with only an extemporaneous knowledge of history, the name “Palestine” merely conjures up the poverty and war-stricken region that prior to the Israeli War for Independence included all of the land from Lebanon to Egypt, from the Arab kingdoms to the east to the Mediterranean. Among however still the many who do not so much as know this much, “Palestine” is the name given to the contested lands bordering Syria and Israel at the Golan Heights, Jordan and Israel in the West Bank (named such because of the Jordan River), and between Egypt and Israel at the Gaza Strip. Of course the reality is that even very few possess this much detail about the geopolitical layout of the region. Such observers may only understand that “Palestine” refers to some land dwelt upon by mostly Arab Muslims, and, if such an observer gains his or her information from the BBC, Reuters or most other European or American news outlets, it is also probably believed that Palestine is where Israelis like to kill little babies. And since most US public school students cannot locate their own country on a map of North America (or read, let alone read a Bible), one can therefore easily see how the latter misconception (not to mention the previously-mentioned non-conceptions) can be as prevalent as we now know them to be.

 

However the term Palestine was not the creation of the Arab inhabitants that moved in over the centuries to fill the vacuum left by the Roman expulsion of the Jews from the land of Abraham, Moses, David, and Solomon. Nor was the term given by the British when they were given the mandate by the League of Nations to govern the territory after World War I. The term “Palestine” in fact was selected by the Romans. The name was given to the land after the Romans had put down Jewish uprisings brought about in response to insufferable religious persecution. At the tragic conclusion of what is called “The Great Revolt”, the Romans leveled Jerusalem and Herod’s Temple (the second temple), committed mass genocide against thousands of Jewish men, women, and children, while expelling the rest from the land which at that time was called Judea (land of the Jews). The Romans (who had lain waste in similar fashion to Carthage and other cities within their sphere of influence already) intended to wipe every vestige of Israel and Jewish history off the map (one wonders where we've heard that sort of talk recently). To complete this task, Rome chose to re-associate the land once belonging to the Jews with a name that was carefully chosen to leave no question about the outcome of the uprisings: Rome decided to name the land after Israel’s ancient and similarly brutal enemy the Philistines. Thus, the land would be called the land of the Philistines until 2000 years later when the era of the Diaspora came to a close and “next year in Jerusalem” became today.

 

Unfortunately as we now know, centuries of conquering hordes from Persia, Europe, and the Ottoman Empire, along with nomads from across the region, meant the Jews returned to a territory being occupied (after all, nature abhors a vacuum). In an ironic twist however, these occupiers, most of whom were Muslim, called themselves “Palestinians”, after the name given to the land by the polytheistic and pagan European Romans in honor of the polytheistic and rather decidedly pagan quasi-European Philistines of Greek origin. Thus, to “fight for Palestine” is to fight a rather ridiculous war for the Romans, to be but a pawn of a long-dead pagan Roman ruler, or perhaps for equally arcane giants and Mycenaean civilization and such. Something with which one would think Mohammed, were he alive today, would have a bit of a problem.

 

But perhaps the one thing that can be considered endearing about the arrangement by many of those who deny Israel's right to exist or to access Judaism's most holy sites is that the very name “Palestine” is anti-Semitic by way of its Roman and Mycenaean origins. The name implies the wholesale slaughter of unarmed civilian men, women, and children, the theft of their property, the destruction of their cities and cultural treasures. It has also meant the condemnation of millions of later generations of adherents to the Jewish faith to face death and persecution through pogroms and concentration camps for the next 2000 years. And today it means missiles, car bombs, suicide bombers on packed busses, and the denial of access to Judaism’s most holy sites in the (most) disputed territories. Most tragically of course it means the temple itself is off-limits, leaving Israel’s Jewish community today deprived of that temple just as this community had been deprived of it by Caligula and the Romans at the beginning of this whole saga. Yet what amazing restraint Israel has shown not to evict today’s gentile occupiers of its most holy places. I cannot think of but a few other cultures which would have maintained such restraint for so many decades after having waited for so many centuries and returning to a land that might as well had been renamed by Hitler in Berlin as by Caligula in Rome. To watch devout Jews who own the land so humbly content to pray along the Western Wall of the temple their forefathers built even as the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock loom overhead (with rocks often being pelted down on Isaac's offspring below) defiling the sacred, is possibly beyond any strength I could by myself muster while remaining placid. 

 

Isn’t it striking then that in the face of such a long-standing and odious example of cruel injustice, religious bigotry, and racism from even before the Romans until now that there are such groups as Amnesty International, which can only blame Israel for all of the Arab men who beat their wives, or IGOs like the UN and de facto anti-Semites like Jimmy Carter and James Baker who engage in nothing short of naked Russo-, Sino-, and OPEC-centric clientism. So while I’m not holding my breath for the PC Police to declare the term “Palestine” hate speech, it at least is worth noting that the status of properties and lands by historic right belonging to Israel but now occupied by Arabs is only tolerated because the people who decide to do so are a meek and gracious people, and obviously, not a people given to spite.

 

I am just waiting for that time when the meek will finally inherit what is historically theirs; indeed, the Hebrew word for land is the same as for earth, so in that sense it would be a world of healing especially for those who have long so waited.

 

 

Posted by Martin at December 20, 2006 01:07 AM

Comments

Posted by: beacon at December 20, 2006 06:56 AM

Posted by: Debbie at December 20, 2006 07:34 AM

Posted by: Martin at December 20, 2006 03:04 PM