The following letter was written by Joseph Farah around October 2000,
copyrighted 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
A daily radio broadcast adaptation of Joseph Farah's commentarie can be hear
on TalkNetDaily.
I've been quiet since Israel erupted in fighting spurred by
disputes over the Temple Mount.
Until now, I haven't even bothered to say, " see, I told you so.
"
But I can't resist any longer. I feel compelled to remind you of the column I
wrote a couple weeks before the latest uprising.
Yeah, folks, I predicted it. That' s OK . Hold your applause.
After all, I wish I had been wrong. More than 80 people have been
killed since the current fighting in and around Jerusalem began. And for
what?
If you believe what you read in most new sources, Palestinians
want a homeland and Muslims want control over sites they consider holy.
Simple, right ?
Well as an Arab American journalist who has spent some time in the
Middle East dodging more than my share of rocks and mortar shells, I' ve got
to tell you, that these are just phony excuses for the rioting, trouble-making
and land-grapping.
Isn' t interesting that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israel war, there
was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland ?
" Well Farah ", you might say, " that was before the Israelis
seized the West Bank and Old Jerusalem ".
That's true, in the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea, Samaria
and East Jerusalem. But they didn' t capture these territorries from Yasser
Arafat. They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. I can' t help but
wonder why all these Palestinians suddenly discovered their national identity
after Israel won the war.
The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never
Land.The first time the name was use was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed
genocide against the Jews, smashed the temple and declared and declared the
land of Israel
would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as
Palestine. The name was derived from the Philistines, a Goliathian people
conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. It was a way for the Romans to add
insult to injury.
They also tried to change the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, but that
had even less staying power.
Palestine has never existed - - before or since - - as an
autonomous entity. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian
crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World war
I.
The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people
as their homeland.
There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct
Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed
by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (
another recent invention ) , Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.
Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands.
Israel represents one tenth of 1 percent of the landmass.
But that 's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is
ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today.
Greed. Pride. Envy. Covetousness. No matter how many land concessions the
Israelis make, it will never be enough.
What about Islam 's holy sites? There are none in Jerusalem.
Shocked? You should be. I don' t expect you will ever hear this
brutal truth from anyone else in the international media. It' s just not
politically correct.
I know what you are going to say : " Farah, the Al Aqsa Mosque and
the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represent
Islam' s third most holy sites . "
Not true. In fact, the Koran says nothing about Jerusalem. It
mentions Mecca hundred of times. It mentions Medina countless times. It never
mentions Jerusalem. with good reason. There is no historical evidence to
suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem.
So how did Jerusalem become the third holiest site of Islam ?
Muslims today cite a vague passage in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura,
entitled " The Night Journey ".
It relates that in a dream or a vision Mohammed was carried by night " from
the sacred temple to the temple that is most
remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our signs..."
In the seventh century, some Muslims identified the two temples mentioned in
this verse as being in Mecca and Jerusalem. And that's as close as Islam' s
connection with Jerusalem gets - - myth, fantasy, wishful thinking.
Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in Jerusalem back to the days of
Abraham.
The latest round of violence in Israel erupted when Likud Party
leader Ariel Sharon tried to visit the Temple Mount, the foundation of the
Temple built by Solomon. It is the holiest site for Jews. Sharon and his
entourage were met with stones and threats. I kno what it's like. I've been
there. Can you imagine what it is like for Jews to be threatened, stoned and
physically kept out of the holiest site in Judaism?
So what's the solution to the Middle East mayhem? Well, frankly,
I don't think there is a man-made solution to the violence. But, if there is
one, it needs to begin with truth. Pretending will only lead to more chaos.
Treating a 5,000-year-old birthright backed by overwhelming historical and
archealogical evidence equally with illegitimate claims, wishes and wants
gives diplomacy and peacekeeping a bad name.
