Refugees of A Refugee Camp

Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac. (Quoted from Bible).

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AND TERAH TOOK ABRAM HIS SON, AND LOT THE SON OF HARAN HIS SON'S SON, AND SARAI HIS DAUGHTER IN LAW, HIS SON ABRAM'S WIFE; AND THEY WENT FORTH WITH THEM FROM UR OF THE CHALDEES, TO GO INTO THE LAND OF CANAAN; AND THEY CAME UNTO HARAN, AND DWELT THERE. AND THE DAYS OF TERAH WERE TWO HUNDRED AND FIVE YEARS: AND TERAH DIED IN HARAN-Gen 11:31,32.

NOW THE LORD HAD SAID UNTO ABRAM, GET THEE OUT OF THY COUNTRY, AND FROM THY KINDRED, AND FROM THY FATHER'S HOUSE, UNTO A LAND THAT I WILL SHOW THEE: AND I WILL MAKE OF THEE A GREAT NATION, AND I WILL BLESS THEE, AND MAKE THY NAME GREAT; AND THOU SHALT BE A BLESSING: AND I WILL BLESS THEM THAT BLESS THEE, AND CURSE HIM THAT CURSETH THEE: AND IN THEE SHALL ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH BE BLESSED-Gen 12:1-3. AND ABRAM PASSED THROUGH THE LAND...AND THE LORD APPEARED UNTO ABRAM, AND SAID, UNTO THY SEED WILL I GIVE THIS LAND-Gen 12:6,7.

NOW SARAI ABRAM'S WIFE BARE HIM NO CHILDREN: AND SHE HAD AN HANDMAID, AN EGYPTIAN, WHOSE NAME WAS HAGAR. AND SARAI SAID UNTO ABRAM, BEHOLD NOW, THE LORD HATH RESTRAINED ME FROM BEARING: I PRAY THEE, GO IN UNTO MY MAID; IT MAY BE THAT I MAY OBTAIN CHILDREN BY HER-Gen 16:1,2. AND HE WENT IN UNTO HAGAR, AND SHE CONCEIVED: AND WHEN SHE SAW THAT SHE HAD CONCEIVED, HER MISTRESS WAS DESPISED IN HER EYES-Gen 16:4. AND SARAI SAID UNTO ABRAM, MAY WRONG BE UPON THEE: I HAVE GIVEN MY MAID INTO THY BOSOM; AND WHEN SHE SAW THAT SHE HAD CONCEIVED, I WAS DESPISED IN HER EYES-Gen 16:5. THEN SARAI MISTREATED HAGAR-Gen 16:6 NIV. AND THE ANGEL OF THE LORD SAID UNTO HER (Hagar), I WILL MULTIPLY THY SEED EXCEEDINGLY...THOU ART WITH CHILD, AND SHALT BEAR A SON, AND SHALT CALL HIS NAME ISHMAEL...



AND HAGAR BARE ABRAM A SON: AND ABRAM CALLED HIS SON'S NAME, WHICH HAGAR BARE, ISHMAEL. AND ABRAM WAS FOURSCORE AND SIX YEARS OLD (86 years old), WHEN HAGAR BARE ISHMAEL TO ABRAM-Gen 16:15,16.

AND WHEN ABRAM WAS NINETY YEARS OLD AND NINE (99), THE LORD APPEARED TO ABRAM, AND SAID UNTO HIM, I AM THE ALMIGHTY GOD; WALK BEFORE ME, AND BE THOU PERFECT-Gen 17:1. NEITHER SHALL THY NAME ANY MORE BE CALLED ABRAM, BUT THY NAME SHALL BE ABRAHAM; FOR A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HAVE I MADE THEE-Gen 17:5. AS FOR SARAI THY WIFE, THOU SHALT NOT CALL HER NAME SARAI, BUT SARAH SHALL HER NAME BE. AND I WILL BLESS HER, AND GIVE THEE A SON ALSO OF HER...AND SHE SHALL BE A MOTHER OF NATIONS; KINGS OF PEOPLE SHALL BE OF HER. THEN ABRAHAM FELL UPON HIS FACE, AND LAUGHED, AND SAID IN HIS HEART, SHALL A CHILD BE BORN UNTO HIM THAT IS AN HUNDRED YEARS OLD? AND SHALL SARAH, THAT IS NINETY YEARS OLD, BEAR? AND GOD SAID, SARAH THY WIFE SHALL BEAR THEE A SON INDEED; AND THOU SHALT CALL HIS NAME ISAAC: AND I WILL ESTABLISH MY COVENANT WITH HIM FOR AN EVERLASTING COVENANT, AND WITH HIS SEED AFTER HIM. AND AS FOR ISHMAEL, I HAVE HEARD THEE: BEHOLD, I HAVE BLESSED HIM, AND WILL MAKE HIM FRUITFUL, AND WILL MULTIPLY HIM EXCEEDINGLY; TWELVE PRINCES SHALL HE BEGAT, AND I WILL MAKE HIM A GREAT NATION. BUT MY COVENANT WILL I ESTABLISH WITH ISAAC-Gen 17:15-17,19-21.

FOR SARAH CONCEIVED, AND BARE ABRAHAM A SON IN HIS OLD AGE...AND ABRAHAM CALLED THE NAME OF HIS SON THAT WAS BORN UNTO HIM, WHOM SARAH BARE TO HIM, ISAAC. AND SARAH SAW THE SON OF HAGAR THE EGYPTIAN, WHICH SHE HAD BORN UNTO ABRAHAM, MOCKING. WHEREFORE SHE (Sarah) SAID UNTO ABRAHAM, CAST OUT THIS BONDWOMAN AND HER SON: FOR THE SON OF THIS BONDWOMAN SHALL NOT BE HEIR WITH MY SON, EVEN WITH ISAAC-Gen 21:2,3,9,10. AND GOD SAID UNTO ABRAHAM...HARKEN UNTO HER VOICE; FOR IN ISAAC SHALL THY SEED BE CALLED-Gen 21:12. ABRAHAM...SENT HER OFF WITH THE BOY-Gen 21:14 NIV.

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This is where it all started. The basic facts are corroborated by Qura’an.

The little boy was Hazrat Ismail. During that time Hagar ran out of food and water on the hill and ran seven times between Safa and Marwa for water for her son but none was forthcoming. Then she asked for God's help and the spring of Zam Zam (Aab-e-Zam Zam of today) sprang for Ismail. That is why Muslims during Hajj take seven turns between Safa and Marwa.

The battle goes on because Ismail was first born of Abraham, but born from a handmaid with Abraham's wife as a surrogate mother. Isaac on the other hand was younger but from Sarah herself, Abraham’s wife.

According to Jewish faith, God had promised Isaac the land of Canaan as he being from Sarah was the true inheritor of Abraham's Covenant; Muslims on the other hand believe the first born Ismail had that right. Orthodox Jews are descendants of Isaac’s son Jacob (Hazrat Yaqub who was later renamed Israel) while most Arabs are descendants of Hazrat Ismail, the elder one.

The two stepbrothers were seperated due to Sarah’s dislike of Hagar and Ismail. Ismail was the wild sort; he would go off shooting his arrows in the desert, while Isaac was the gentle one. Ibrahim was the first to discover the mono-diety of God and defied King Nimrod’s fire in his belief. As such it doesn’t appear likely he would have preferred one son to another.

‘Bey khatar kood para aatish’e Namrood mein ishq’

‘Aql khari hei mah’ve tamasha-i lab-e-baam abhi’

(Iqbal)

Significant however is the casting out of Hagar and Ismail by Abraham on Sarah’s prompting. It’s a mystery why he did that.

Another dispute is over whom God had asked Abraham to sacrifice on the Temple Mount amongst the two sons. Muslims believe it was Ismail, therefore the Muslim Eid-Ul-Azha. Christians and Jews believe it was Isaac. The evidence tilts in favour of Qura’an’s version because it is unaltered. Bible’s version is not authentic given that it was re-written many times over ancient history.

Now, who then set up the conflict?

Jews would have the world believe it is God, and the American President shakes his head in confirmation saying that yes it is a historical and a Biblical conflict and dismissively says the killings there have been going on for centuries. Bush is the person who didn’t even know before he came to office if Musharraf had been elected or came to power with a coup. The Texan cowboy had congratulated Musharraf on a great democratic victory. Being ignorant even about current affairs, what would he know about distant History going back to 2000 BC?

The reality is that the devastation of Judea and Samaria formed in 1020 BC under Saul commenced in pre-Islamic times starting in 586 BC by the Babylonians. In 333 BC, Alexander the Great's conquest brought the area under Greek rule. In 63 BC, the Jewish state, Judea, was incorporated into the Roman province of Palestine. In 70 AD the Emperor Titus put down a revolt against Roman rule. This marks the beginning of the Jewish Diaspora. During 118-138 AD, in the Roman Emperor Hadrian's rule, Jews were initially allowed to return to Jerusalem, but after a Jewish revolt in 133 - the city was completely destroyed and its people banished and sold into slavery. In 638 AD, conquest by Arab Muslims ended Byzantine rule. The second caliph of Islam, Omar, built a mosque at the site of what is now the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in early 8th Century. Apart from the age of the Crusaders (1099-1187), the region remained under Muslim rule until the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 20th Century. This was the only period in Jewish history when Jews were free from persecution; only under Islamic rule.

There were 25,000 Jews in Palestine at the end of the Second World War when Arthur Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild about creation of a Jewish state. In 1948 at the end of the British Mandate in Palestine there were 55,000. After end of the British Mandate on May 15, 1948 the immigration began in hundreds of thousands and continues.

The end of the Second World War saw resettlement of the effected of anti-Semitism of Europe and survivors of the holocaust inside the Palestinian territory, while placing the Palestinians in refugee camps. It wasn’t the Muslims’ fault. The European Christians killed 6 million Jews in a genocide attempt and kicked the rest out. Muslims had nothing to do with it. The Christians probably did it because the Jews had killed Jesus and then were trying to take over the Christian morality and society. Jews are a strange people. They were not persecuted without a reason since the milleniums between Pharaoh’s times till 1948.

Significant question is why weren’t the Jews resettled back in their original homes in Europe after the Allies won the second war? The answer is obvious. The Europeans didn’t want them in their territory. Therefore the Balfour declaration.

The land allocated by the UN to Israel in 1948 was 54% of the total area with the rest going to Palestinians. Jerusalem was stipulated by UN to be an International Zone without either party’s sovereignty. Arabs didn’t accept that as the land is Palestine and Jews would have been welcome to cohabit in a Palestinian State as they had done since Omar’s time in the Eighth century. Israel was not acceptable, as a separate entity, placed as a crucifying nail in Arab heartland. Thus the wars of 1948, 1953, 1967, 1973. Consequently, Palestinian lands were reduced to less than 25% of the total area after Israeli expansions resulting from Arab defeats in the wars. Within that 25%, there are Jewish settlements, which nail down Palestinians within their meager homeland/refugee camps. These settlements are spotted all over West Bank and Gaza in the midst of Palestinians in an attempt to keep them subdued.

Jenin’s refugees date back to 1953 who refused to be resettled in other countries like Jordan, which was willing to accept them and it would have been easy. Instead, they chose to stand and fight to the end in their little narrow alleys, and die. The last stand of Jenin will never be forgotten. Jenin is a watershed for the world’s conscience. Jenin has elaborated in complete detail the values, which merit living or dying.

I saw on BBC yesterday an elderly women survivor from Jenin who was saying she doesn’t need food handouts from the world, she only needs guns and bombs.

After a long and laborious text, the conclusion is:

1) Israel and the Palestinians cannot and will not survive side-by-side in the land of Canaan, as all the Mitchells and Tenets and Clintons’/Bushs’ of this world propose. Only one out of two will remain. All peace plans are based on the Land for Peace argument which offers a compromise to Palestinians to take whatever is on the table in return for peace for Israel. That will never happen. It’s either the whole land or nothing for the Palestinians.

2) The issues of settlements in the West Bank/Gaza and Right of Return of Palestinians are an insolvable problem being the key to the survival of either party. Palestinian birthrate is three times that of the Jews so they will outnumber Jews regardless of how many Palestinians the Jews manage to kill. By agreeing to right of return Israel will be destroyed so they won’t agree. The Palestinian side on the other hand will never have an agreement unless the 3+ million Palestinians dispersed all over the world have a right to return. A basic human right.

3) The land of Canaan is Palestinian land and the Jews can either request their masters to resettle them in Canada in lieu of $3 billion per annum of military aid used to massacre Palestinians, or in Australia. After all, Jews would be better integrated in Canada or Australia because of racial similarity. Canada needs 1 million workers as it is. It’s better for the Jews to go to Canada and just leave the Palestinians alone.

4) If above does not come about, the only way the conflict is likely to be resolved is inevitably through a mushroom cloud.

God did not set up this conflict. The murderers of prophets set it up. And it will continue till the very end. But the cost is heavy. This conflict means major changes in civilizational behavior as we know or are familiar with.