Israel & Palestine Facts

The answer is the indigenous Palestinian whether or not in Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region, the children of Israel war in Egypt, under slavery, who was in Palestine. In order to make this Jewish dream a reality, we have to visit a nightmare on the local population.

So we're all aware of what is happening around the world and the stress that is causing us and to others. And as conscientious people, I think it is important that we arm ourselves with facts and we make decisions based on facts. So I will place before you some historical facts, political facts, realities that no one can dispute. And then you can make your own informed decisions. And if you are able to consume the information, then you can inform the decisions of others. And that's a very important point to take away from this presentation. So the three monotheistic faiths as in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, trace the lineage back to Abraham.

And Abraham in the scriptures is referred to as the friend of God. So this friend of God had two famous sons, Ismail or Ishmael and Isaac was hug.

From the Ismail cam, the Arabs and from Isaak cam, our Jewish cousins.

So our main focus here is, is on Isaac. So Isaac had a son called the APU, Bo Jacob. And Jacob in Scripture is known as Israel. So when we say children of Israel, we mean the children of Jacob, so as relights, as in the children of Israel, as in the children of Jacob. So Jacob had 12 sons.

And his most famous son is the famous use of for Joseph. And we know historically that Joseph was taken to Egypt or ended up in Egypt as a child. And there he grew up and there he flourished, and there he gained prominence. And once he gained prominence, he called his family over so the 12 brothers, and parents all ended up in Egypt, meaning Israel and his children, and they're up in Egypt. So the logical question here for everyone is, is whilst Israel and his children as in the Israelites war in Egypt, who was in Palestine,

because there were people in Palestine, and they were not the Israelites, because they were obviously in Egypt. So who was in Palestine? And the answer is quite simple. The answer is the indigenous Palestinian.

They lived in Palestine before the Israelites came

into the scene, and after they came into the scene, so the indigenous Palestinian was in Palestine. And on the side here, in Egypt, the Israelites lived, and sometimes later, they were enslaved, and they lived in the slavery for centuries, all the way until Moses can. So again, my second question is all those centuries that the children of Israel war in Egypt, under slavery, who was in Palestine, and the answer, again, is the indigenous Palestinian, it is very important to note this point.

So eventually Moses camp and the fiber story the sea parted, and he took his tribe with him as in the Israelites, they crossed the sea and were freed and emancipated from the tyranny of the pharaohs. And now that they are free, that they have crossed the sea and out of the borders of Egypt, they are there in the wilderness, and they dwelt for 40 more years. So for 40 more years, even after Moses,

as they were in the children of Israel, a dwelling and in the wilderness, who was in Palestine, and again, the answer is the indigenous Palestinian.

And eventually, after 40 years, a generation died and another generation came up, and

you shave noon was the military leader, and in his army is young David. So this is where the famous story of David and Goliath happens. So the 12 big tribes of Israel join forces and attack individual tribes of the Palestinians and they take over the land, conquer and enslave and kill us as was the rule and the law of the olden days. And they built their their kingdom there on the land of the Palestinians. And then the golden age of the Israelites come so this is King David and King Solomon.

or Tao with Allah His Salim and Sulaiman Alayhis Salam. And this is where the famous temple is being built. And before the temple could be built, Solomon, and Solomon passed away. And then came the decline of this kingdom that was established.

And other empires and other sources of authority and power started to spread. So for example, the Assyrians came and took over the land pretty quickly, and their dominion and their reign and their rule lasted for some 100 years or more. And then after them came the Neo Babylon and they took over the place and they burnt the temple down to the ground and expelled all the Jews out of it, all the Israelites out of it, and it was a long time before they were allowed to trickle back in and after them camp, the Persians. And again, another empire. So all this time, there was no more Jewish rule and Jewish kingdom and Jewish capital.

in Palestine, Jews might have existed in small batches, but predominantly, it was the writing of others, indigenous population stayed there.

You know, the ones that were that that survived the previous massacres, and so on, and they kind of molded and matched with with the new authorities that came into power. And then the Macedonian King Alexander the Great cam took over the whole thing again. And after the Macedonians, you know, the Roman Empire cam, and later on, after Christ, the Romans became Christian. So there was obviously a lot of tensions between Christianity and the Jewish population, there was a couple of uprisings from local Jews which it was crushed, beyond repair, if you like, and Roman rule and Christian rule right over there, all the way until Islam came. And when Islam finally came in six hundreds, inside

Palestine, so you had predominantly Christians, and there was no traces of, of Jews or Judaism to be found simply because of the animosity between,

you know, between Christianity and Jews, because one, one classified considered Jesus as God and the other ones didn't consider him that and they kind of in they gave him bad names. And the Christians considered that the Jews were the ones that caused the killing of Jesus. So there was a lot of hatred there and no one hit that. So until Islam came and when Islam came and took over Palestine, the famous Khalifa, Omar Abdul hubbub, asked because there used to be, you know, in the past Jewish quarters here, where's that that place? So they showed him a dump site, that this is where the Jews used to be in the past, no trace of them and at that time, so the Khalifa said that this was wrong,

rebuilt the places and brought Jewish families back to settle there.

And you had that vibrancy where there was Muslims there Christians there and, and Jews there. And in a lot of ways, it was Islam that save Jewry.

So time continued, from that time, from the conquest of Amara, the Khalifa, all the way to 1914, all the way to 1914.

Palestine stayed under Islamic rule, not just so when Islam can the local population, you had the indigenous Palestinian living there, you had remnants of the Roman Empire living in there, and you had, you know, now that the Muslims brought in some of the Jews living in there. And over time, some of the, you know, people who are indigenous

inhabitants of Palestine, some of them became Muslims, others must have become Christians, and there was also the Jewish inhabitants. So that local population and there are becoming Muslims, and that local population had already existed, and some of them were Christians, some of those converted, so you had that mix of religion, but it was under the umbrella of Islam and the Muslim population kept on growing organically through either conversion or birth and predominant population. There were Muslims and minority of Christians existed and a minority of Jews existed and they lived in relative comfort and in relative acceptance of one another, all the way to 1914.

This is where World War One happens, and the Islamic fella falls apart. So the question is, how have we got to where we have got today and the mess that you see on the screens?

So around 1880, the Jewish population at this stage is spread across Europe and in some other countries. So you have, you know, bits and pieces all over Europe and some in Iran and some in Yemen and so on and so forth. So I'm it's the affluent European Jews, this idea started to emerge that we need to have our own homeland. And we need to have a place specifically dedicated for Jews.

And this is what they call the Zionist thought that a homeland a kingdom rule a state of our own.

And based on this thought, people started to migrate towards Palestine. So from 1881 to 1903, about 25,000 Jews migrated around this notion with this thought that we need to have our own homeland and they migrated to Palestine. Their misfortune is that Palestine was already the homeland of other people. I, you know, in particular, the Palestinians, the indigenous Palestinians. So they started to trickle in, into Palestine by 1896. So some 16 years later, I, the first Zionist Congress is formed and established and they have their first meeting, or they have their first Congress, in which Theodor Herzl proposed plans to establish a Jewish state and Palestine. Notice some of the

groundwork is already done prior to this, as in people have started migrating chasing that, that theory and that dream, but now it is formalized that this is what we are doing. And this is called the birth of political Zionism. 1896 So by next year, they had their manifesto already setting out the aim and ambitions to go and get a homeland in Palestine.

Yes, pass. And by 1914, World War One starts. So in World War One, you had Germany and basically the Ottoman Empire, who controlled Palestine,

go to war with

other European states. This is World War One.

And at that time, Palestine is part of the Ottoman Empire. So as the war started, and these are the last days of the Ottoman Empire, so there was weaknesses across the Empire, the British and the French realize that lesson,

this empire could fall apart. So they planned ahead that in the event that that falls apart, who takes which part. So they assigned to people, Mark Sykes and Francisco georgeous. To sit down and map out carve out your section and my section as in take the Muslim empire and say this part will go to France in this spot will go to to the British, and this became famous as the infamous P cot secret agreement, where someone else's homeland was carved out by two people sitting in a dark little room. And 1916, they carved this out and that carving out Palestine was allocated

to the British, the Congress of of Zionists approached the British

with regards to their intention that we want the homeland there, and the British were happy at the time to accept help and payment because they're running a war. And in return, they agreed that we will give Palestine as a place that could be home for the Jewish population. And this is this is the this is the bell for agreement and 1917 Balfour agreement and 1917 and you can see it there.

It's, you know, from Her Majesty's Government, to the Rothschilds that this is, you know, we have exceeded we have accepted this notion.

So, 1918 is where the British took over Palestine from the Ottomans, the Ottomans lost the war, the British formally took over Palestine in 1918.

And within months, they started to migrate sent over Jewish people into the into this new area that had come under their mandate. So they are Arabs there that have been living there for at least, you know, a few 1000 years. And now they have got these European settlers who are not local, they cannot speak the local language. They have been brought over from across Europe and at that time, there's no Nazis in the picture yet. This is this is World War One has just ended. They are being brought into into Palestine and allocated you know, places there and the state is being facilitated by the authority.

At the incharge, which is the British,

and as they arrive, so they started to arrive 1919 by 1920. So within a year, they had secretly formed their own secret underground military gangs. So the Hagana was the first one of those. And this was a secret army that the British were not aware of, or the British didn't support or was illegal to the British. And their job was to basically harass local population push the boundaries. And if you look at their narrative, basically secure the people but the British were already there as the law looking after the security of people to the level possible. Now, within the Hagana, there were people more hot headed than the actual Hagana. And some of those broke away in the late 1920s.

And formed another organization called Aragon and Rohan pointed their guns both at the British who were keeping the peace who, you know, had the authority on the land, and the Arabs. So assassination started to happen, blowing up of buildings, and so on and so forth. And then sometimes later, Lefty can who which was even worse than these two, and much more aggressive in their pursuit of, you know, blowing up lines of transportation, killing politicians, and so on and so forth, and pushing all the time, the boundaries of, of the settlements. So, this continued for some time. And while this is happening here in Palestine, on the other side, there in Europe, Nazism is coming through and and by

1933, the Nazi leader Hitler has become the Chancellor of Germany. And we all know what happened there the massive atrocities against the Jewish population, and the huge sentiments that grew out of that for, for the, for the Jews, and, you know, to have a place of their own or sympathy for them, so that they could be, you know, granted some of their wishes with, with comfort. So migration started to increase the rate of migration. And by about 1945, some 400,000

zine Zionist Jews or Jews had ended up in in Palestine.

This is the official number. But those three gangs that we talked about, Iran, Hagana and and lackey, secretly brought many 1000s more part of the job was to smuggle Jews in from Europe and around the world, into this new land that they were bent on carving up into a nation for themselves. So as part of that, you see some of the terrorist activities it's for in 1946, or one blew up, the King David Hotel, officers of the immigration of the British and also their taxation, and 91 people were killed. This is on record and the time classify the terrorist activity by the powers that were in charge, and 4045 people were injured. Now, the British were in a messy situation, because the

Arabs didn't want them there, because occupiers the

Jews didn't want them there because they were restricting them. So eventually, 1947 they started to talk with this new United Nations who drew up a new map, because that's what was the thing that happened, and at the time, they drew up a new map, this is going to be for the Arabs, and this is going to be for the Jews. This is called resolution 181. In the United Nations. So in that resolution, they gave about 45% of the land of Arab land back to the Arabs like this will be yours. 55% of it was given to this European Jews that had come into into Arab land, and Jerusalem would remain a part that is controlled by by the international community.

This theory never actually stuck. In 1948, the British washed their hands of this mess and went back and on pretty much the same day. Israel declared that it's a state and in that time, this is where the Nakba happened. With about 750,000 Palestinians were kicked out of the land the olive groves were burned their homes demolished.

Murder and massacre to entice fear so that they can vacate the land. And by the end of it, some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled in this very painful part of history.

And the question is

Why was this allowed to happen? Where was the international community, how the someone else's land get robbed. And the reason is in front of you here by the current president of the United States, and at the time, they one of its one of its politicians. And you can listen to this and see what you think it is the best $3 billion investment we make.

Whether or not in Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region. So he has a map in front of you 1947 This is what Palestine looked like there was a small Jewish population understand this end of World War Two. So already a lot of emigration has happened, but at the time, there's a small percentage and some of their settlements, the UN plan gave the small percentage of Jewish settlements 55% of the land. But by 49, when they had declared their own state, they had taken a whole heap more and cleared most of the land of of the Palestinian population. Many Israelis saw this war, they just won as not just a military

victory, but a religious sign that the Jews were meant to return to the place where a huge amount of Jewish history happened, the hills of the ancient Judea and Samaria, which is basically the entire West Bank. So while the government was debating what to do, Israeli civilians began moving into the West Bank without any permission from the government. They just started setting up homes establishing a Jewish presence in this region. Suddenly, any debate about what to do with the West Bank had to take into account the growing number of Israeli civilians that were living there, but the rest of the world did not approve of this. As I said, the presence grew the UN issued a

resolution saying that the settlements had no legal validity and that they constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East. They were basically saying that the settler activity was totally illegal. The settlers were colonizing land to expand their nation. In spite of international condemnation, the number of settlers in the West Bank grew.

Over the next few decades, more and more factions of the Israeli government began to support the settler movement, allocating public resources and granting permits for building the Israeli housing ministry and military began developing plans on how to develop the West Bank. They built roads throughout the entire region, allowing easy access between settlements in mainland Israel, more and more building permits were given out and planned communities began popping up all over the West Bank. The settlement slowly shifted from a fringe group of motivated civilians to an institutionalized part of Israeli society, totally supported by the state.

Here are the Palestinian towns in the West Bank, watch how the settlements weave throughout these Palestinian towns.

In the mid 1990s, American President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords, agreements that established a Palestinian government and split the West Bank into three sections. Area A gave Palestinians total control over security and government. This makes up about 18% of the West Bank, but most of the Palestinian population centers are here. This was a big deal because it gave Palestinians self rule for the first time. Area B was designated for Palestinian government control while retaining Israeli security control, meaning the Israeli military remains very present their area B is about 22% of the

Westbank. Area C remained completely under the Israeli military and government control. This is where all the settlements are in area. See, it's about 60% of the West Bank. So this is basically how we ended up with this mess of a map. Israelis can come and go from mainland Israel through really nice roads that go straight to the settlements. They call these roads flyovers, because they bypass Palestinian villages and give easy access from one settlement to the other. But not every settlement has one of these flyover roads, Palestinians can drive on almost all the roads in the West Bank, but their movement is often more difficult, more restricted. They have to stop at

checkpoints and get their car inspected. Sometimes, sometimes it makes for some really long lines. But certainly one of the most difficult aspects of this carved up land situation is how it hinders Palestinians from being able to build an economy Area C which is under Israeli control contains the majority of the West Bank agricultural land as well as the water and mineral resources. Palestinian companies are severely restricted in accessing these resources, which takes a huge hit on their economy. So with these three sections agreed upon by both sides, the settlements continued to grow in areas see today. They are hundreds of settlements across the West Bank and almost like new real

estate releases. New land is being taken on a weekly basis or Palestinian homes being demolished Palestinian homes being taken over

And the distress and the hatred and the anxiety and the pain that this causes is unimaginable.

And the settlements are not little tense. So you have some pictures presented here for you. They are proper solid structures that are not going anywhere.

And that just amplifies the pain that the local, the local indigenous population feel, as more and more of their land is being taken more and more of their freedoms being diminished. So currently, this is the this is the map. So 1947 is what was there at the end of World War Two. And the current

map of Israel is what you have there with little spots of Palestinian land and Palestinian control and Palestinian ownership left the life of a Palestinian it's important to see and I've got Dr. Gabor here

who was a Holocaust survivor himself

to give a little glimpse of of what they live through. I'm personally a Holocaust survivor. As an infant.

I barely survived my foot, my grandparents were killed in Auschwitz.

And most of my extended family was killed.

That's my personal background. In my teenage years in Canada, I became a Zionist this dream of the Jewish people resurrected in their historical homeland and the barbed wire of Auschwitz, being replaced by the boundaries of a Jewish state with a powerful army.

I I find it liberating, it was exhilarating to believe in a dream.

And I absorbed all the all that perspective and all that point of view, and I really believed in it.

And then I found that it wasn't exactly like that, that in order to make this Jewish dream a reality, we had to visit a nightmare on the local population. You couldn't. There was a design of slogan called

a land without a pupil for people without a land. But there was no people with there was no land without upheaval. There was people living there who would be living there for hundreds and years or even longer. And there's no way you could have ever created

a Jewish state

without oppressing and expelling the local population, which is what they did in 1947, beginning in 1947. And first of all, with the British impure Empire protection, you know, but they did this and then in 1948, is really historians, Israeli historian Jewish Israeli stories, has shown without a doubt that the expulsion of the Palestinians was persistent. It was pervasive, it was cruel, it was murderous

and with deliberate attempt.

So that's what it's called the Nakba. In Arabic the disaster or the catastrophe, non Israel nine Canada, there's a law that you cannot deny the Holocaust. I don't believe in such laws by the way. But in Israel, you're not allowed to mention the Nakba, even though it's at the very basis of the foundation of the state. So

once I became aware of all this,

I was

okay, well, yeah, we created this beautiful dream.

But we impose the nightmare on somebody else.

And then I visited the occupied territories. Russell during the First Intifada.

I cried every day for two weeks at what I saw, the brutality, the occupation, the petty harassment, the murderous pneus of it, the

burning down of the Palestinian or cutting down of Palestinian olive groves,

the denial of water rights, the humiliations.

And this went on and it's much worse now than it was then. It's the longest ethnic cleansing operation. In the 20th and 21st century, it's still going and all across the West Bank. There are these massive fences that are built a security fences

and inside it massive restrictions, water restrictions, food restrictions, agricultural restrictions, import export restrictions.

deliberately designed to ensure that no viable system comes out of the West Bank. And this is the life of people who are going around their normal, day to day they have to go through endless checkpoints. There are times where babies are born on the way through checkpoints that can reach hospitals, people going towards their study and about education. Go through the same problems. Here you have, I'm a student, I want to complete my studies, the constant bombardment and demolition of houses.

normal part of life and here is a clip of another just ordinary day at work, ordinary day in Palestine, where one of the settlers decides to take the house that belonged to for centuries, probably to a Palestinian family, you are stealing my house. And if I don't steal it, someone else is gonna steal it.

No one

is allowed to steal that yummy.

You know, this is not your house. Yes. But if I go, you don't go back. So what's the what are you telling me? I didn't do this. I didn't do this.

to yell at me, but I didn't do this. You are stealing my house. So the question now is for us, what to do was as conscientious people as

number one,

I encourage you do not suppress but encourage expression.

So the pain, the suffering, the heart ache that you feel, and feel free to express that whether that's online, whether that's to your local member of of Parliament, whether that's to your politicians, whether that's on a news article, but Express

second is empower with the truth. Because the famous biblical statements, Seek ye the truth, and the truth will set you free. So the truth is very powerful. So get these facts and place it in front of

you know, arm yourself with it, equip yourself with it. And that's, that's a mighty tool in your toolkit. And then enable with skill. So improve your writing, improve your expression, improve your debating capabilities, the more people that have the capacity to communicate the truth, the quicker change, can can happen. And thirdly, build confidence so support engagement and advocate lobbying in your local communities for your time and patience. I thank you, sir. Mr. Aiken, Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.