"To be, or not to be, from the river to the sea…"

Image credits: Troops searching a Jewish immigrant ship, Haifa, 1948.

The dispute between Israelis and Palestinians over who rightfully owns the area between the River and the Sea is a 1,400-year-old conflict that has nothing to do with the Palestinians' current feigned territorial quest. The current strife continues an old conflict that is not about land but faith. It has always been a struggle for religious dominance rather than a territorial struggle. And to start in the Levant.

By Ken van Ierlant
If we go back 1400 years, there were no Palestinians, nor was there a Palestinian state or region. The conflict is about the overarching ideological struggle of Islam and the subjugation of two competing religious predecessors.

In the view of the then-new Muslim rulers, Islam was the logical successor. Its sacred mission was to replace all competing faiths: Judaism and Christianity in the Middle East, Europe, and the New World, and Hinduism and Buddhism in Asia.

Jihadism is a global struggle for world domination with spearheads in the Middle East, Europe and Asia in terms of time and intensity. The battle flares up again, and after 500 years, he is back in the Levant as a springboard to Europe and beyond.

There is a clear parallel in this intolerance towards other religions between then and now. Where Islam rules, there is no room for other religions, except that people are, at best, subjugated or ethnically decimated.

130 AD
Back to the beginning: after the Bar Kochba uprising in 130 AD, where the Jews rebelled against the Romans, the Jewish people were ethnically cleared and driven out of the Levant. Although most Jews have gone into the diaspora, a small minority has been left behind, and it survived for 2000 years in Galilee, Judea, Samaria, Askehlon and Ashdod near Gaza.

After this catastrophe, the Levant became a Roman province. They named Aelia Capitolina Palestine and Demographic/ Religious Christian. The Byzantines, as ethnic successors of the Romans, held up until the seventh century. In 637 AD, Jerusalem and the Levant were flooded by Bedouin hordes with a new faith that started to wave the temple mountain.  A mosque was built on top of the Jewish sanctuary as a sign of their superiority, and then a parable that Mohammed of the Temple Mount on a flying donkey had risen to heaven was added.

However, the Quran has not mentioned Jerusalem as a holy place once. The parable and construction of the Rock of the Dome, i.e.. The Al Aksa Mosque had to give the conquest of Jerusalem a divine status and confirm it as a fait accompli.

The Islamic hordes and Clans replaced each other in the following centuries and defended the conquered area, particularly against Crusaders, Persians, and other tribes. What is special is that despite Islamic rule after the year 630, the area remained predominantly Christian until the sixteenth century.

By creating Islam as the current doctrine, Jewish and Christianity were gradually devalued into a second-class faith. If Jerusalem falls, Constantinople falls, Rome falls, Moscow (head of Greek Orthodox Church) and the rest of the Western Christian world.

Islam has endless patience in his ambition for world domination. Islam replaces Jews and Christianity as the new doctrine for the whole world. That process is going on to this day.

The area was still predominantly Christian in the sixteenth century. However, due to climate change, increasing poverty, and Ottoman pressure to convert to Islam, the population decreased exponentially. As a result, the Levant eventually became Islamic.

However, according to a Turkish census in 1860, there were only five thousand people in Jerusalem, 60% of whom were also Jewish.

Demographic challenge
Scientific research, among others, by Mark Twain and American and English scientists showed in 1859 that the entire area had been economically neglected and sucked out by the Turks and demographically emptied.

Christians and Jews lived there as dhimmis (second-class citizens) with special taxes and obligations in the area. Only at the end of the 19th century did the situation change due to the further weakening of the Ottoman Empire, European colonialism, Western industrial revolution and the emancipation of many peoples worldwide.

As a result, millions of people emigrated to the new world. At the same time, many ISMEs arose, such as socialism, communism, capitalism, and Zionism, as emancipation movements against aristocracy and feudal exploitation and oppression.

This is also the case in the Levant; people went to look for a better world. A small group of Jews of about 40,000 sought to resort to the existing Jewish villages and towns that remained after the Koch Ba Uprising based on a Zionist dream in the Levant.

The Arabs from the surrounding countries searched the region and ended up in present-day Lebanon and the Levant. The hinterland, which the Turks operated, was impoverished and demographically empty. The population was ethnically very divided and mostly lived by the sea.

The fall of the Ottoman Empire
With the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1917 and the Sikes / Picot Convention in 1919, the area was divided into three mandate areas in which the English and French were the service.

When the British split the mandate in 1922 in Trans and Sid Jordan, around 200,000 people lived in Jordan, of which 100,000 were Bedouins. The remaining 100,000 men lived around Amman and were ethnically comparable to the people on the other bank of the Jordan.

It is striking that the predominantly Christian majority after the 17th century had decreased dramatically throughout the area, with the Jewish Sephardic population being able to stand up despite the many pogroms and poverty.

On the other hand, the emergence of a small Jewish community after 1880 and the establishment of the British mandate, who only pursued self-determination in their former residential area, was a thorn in the eye of the Great Mufti of Jerusalem.  He then organised a trash of pogroms to decimate and expel the Jews on the one hand, but also to put pressure on the English Christian rulers.

The Jihad was ignored again because the hegemony of Islam in the Levant was challenged by the Jews, helped by the British, after 500 years of rest. The result was three genocidal wars, the establishment of the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Al Qaida, and other extremist factions driven by flaring indoctrination and hate propaganda.

The 1400 years of religious conflict intensified when the Jews started to oppose this intolerance because they stepped out of their role as Dhimmi. With only 1 % of the Arab eight countries as a habitat, where they had already written 3500 years of history, the Jews, through negotiations with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, claimed their own mini-state in which everyone could live in coexistence.

Faisal agreed, provided the British were to keep their agreements what they did not do and caused extremism.

In the tradition of the first Islamic ruler, the Great Mufti of Jerusalem, Yasser Arafat, with his PLO and numerous splinter groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, Whabi Salafism, however, divided, has his spearhead aimed at the destruction of the state of Israel.

This was the first base to conquer Europe, the US, and South America from the inside as if it were a seventh column. There is no question of a compromise, but never. Despite the Oslo chords, all subsequent attempts to come to peace have proven useless.

What is extraordinary is that the Shiite branch of Islam is the facilitator of present-day Sunni Salafism to organise and finance this jihad. Sunnis and Shiites, despite the mutual hatred, act together to achieve their goals. The ashes of this evil are in Tehran, and they have focused their arrows through Shiite and Sunni Proxy Armies to be the first to destroy Israel and Judaism and then the Western Christian world.

Action Reaction
However, on the other hand, an alliance has arisen between Sunni, Christian, and Jewish leaders in the form of the Abraham chords to put the head in the head and create a coexistence between the three important world religions, starting in the Levant.

The current war in the Middle East is not a territorial conflict but a struggle between several ideologies in which Israel is the First Line of Defense against Iran and its Salafism. The outcome of this struggle determines the future of these monotheistic ideologies and cultures. The call for a ceasefire in exchange for the release of the hostages is nothing more or less than obtaining a "Hudna" to pick up the weapons again if Hamas and CS have recovered from the current defeat.

That is why continuing the battle is a must to eradicate extremism with roots and branches so that a new basis can arise for peace for all participants.

 

Ken van Ierlant

Dr Ken van Ierlant is a Dutch data entrepreneur and the CEO of FutureXL, based in The Hague. He writes about data innovation and a wide variety of geopolitical issues, specialising in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
See full bio >
The Liberum runs on your donation. Fight with us for a free society.
Donation Form (#6)

2 comments on “"To be, or not to be, from the river to the sea…"”

  1. This is a brilliantly written historical account by Dr. Vanlerlant. Bravo, Sir.

More articles you might like

Talking to Dr. Stefano Bigliardi – Controversies over Ancient Aliens and Modern Authors

Controversies over the concept of Ancient Aliens have become mainstream among traditional scientists. For the […]

Why Syria? And why now?

Ironically, on the very day the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon was announced, a new […]
- - by The Liberum on 27/11/2024

Georgian October’s parliamentary election was pivotal for the country's future

Georgia’s parliamentary election in late October was one of the most controversial and important elections […]

Endangered Species: protect the pitch-black Black Pete in the Netherlands

The ethnic diversity in the Netherlands would not tolerate a sooty Black Pete (zwarte piet). […]
- by Arthur Blok on 20/11/2024

Baku chances the geopolitical climate at COP29

Azerbaijan was selected this year to host the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29). A mix of […]

In Gaza Gotham means God… A movie diatribe

Please don’t ask me for the meaning of the title. It came to me in […]