The Great Misinterpretation How Palestinians View Israel - Haviv Rettig Gur

• MLK Coercive Nonviolence Strategy

• In 1905; Ottoman told the Zionists they can’t make a nation in their Empire, but how about Greece?

  • They were scared of Nationalism

• Ottoman Empire understands its weak and worried about nationalism

• Ottoman Elites reaction to first wave of Jews

  • First problem was that the Jews were Russians
  • Because arch enemy of Ottoman Empire was Russia
    • 4 wars
    • Russian claims on holy sites in Jerusalem
  • is desperately poor
    • Concessions for Christian Western Nations
  • Ottoman Elites sees a bunch of Russian subjects not under their own law and evading law
    
    (Father and son)

• asks: Why are the Jews coming?

  • Not because of Zionist Congress or Russian Empire, but their refugees, Romanians are tormenting the Jews
  • So you torment Jews as well and they’ll go on to the next place

• Tsar wants to keep the Jews out of the Empire because he hates Jews, but once their there he has to protect them because their Russians as it’ll look good optically

• Kamil in 1910: Establishes committee to look into Jewish immigration

  • Recommendations
    • Have to stop it
    • Stop land sales
  • Ottoman Empire does nothing

• New Ottoman Governor

  • Cracks down on Jewish land sales, Zionist organizations and immigration
  • See that they’ll have an Arab problem if the immigration of Jews continues
  • Only oversees Jerusalem though

• Governor in Beirut doesn’t crack down so Jews go up there to buy land

  • And when he does, they move back to Jerusalem when there’s a new governor

• From the very beginning is the very weakness of Islamic and Arab weakness

• The only thing the Arab nations are very strong about is they don’t want the Palestinians with them.

• 1896: Theodor Herzl goes to Constantinople to meet with Sultan Abdul Hamid

  • Abdul Hamid won’t meet him
  • Hamid’s aid tells Herzl
  • Sultan knows he’s weak and he needs money; negotiating credit lines with Jewish banks in Europe

Quotes (Israel-Palestine)

• His concern is Honor and Pride from losing land to the Jews

  • Wasn’t writing about the Russians expanding in the Balkans (Muslims)
  • If the Jews can take our land, how much lower can we go?

• Islamic renewalist

• If the Jews in 1898 can take you, you’re pretty pathetic

• Arabs of Palestine don’t understand they are fighting a much larger fight: Islamic Honor

• • Starts riot in 1920 at Al-aqsa Mosque
  • Needs to awaken the Palestinians so their not pathetically taken over by Jews

• After WWI and British running the area; it’s not the Jews coming from Russia anymore

• San Remo Conference; P. not invited

• West closing its door to Jewish immigration in the 1930s

• P. elites are convinced by the 1930s that Jews are the agents of British Imperialism

• Palestine Name History

  • By 1910, P. start to call themselves P. elites
    • The world calls land Palestine and the people Arab
  • 1914: Newspaper in Jaffa called Falastin
    • Owned by Christian Arabs
  • 1914: Newspaper in Haifa called Al-Karmil
    • Owned by Christian Arabs
  • By 1930s, its pretty common to say Palestine. By 1960s, its everybody

• Rashid Rida’s teachings about Islam as a Nation (Ummah) to counter Western Imperalism

• The Arab Revolt

  • Led by
  • Sparked by ‘s religious idea and framework
    • Namesake of Hama’s military brigades
    • Preacher in Haifa
    • Founding of Jihadi resistance groups, small groups
    • Comes from lower classes, not part of elites (who failed Palestinians).
    • Solution will come from Jihad not P. elites
    • Launched terrorist attacks in 1936
    • British will rush troops to P. for next three years
  • British for first time give training and weapons to Jews and Jewish military organizations
  • Before Arab Revolt, Jews didn’t have a military, after they do.
  • If you’re a P. and looking at the Arab revolt, who suppressed you?
    • The British did
      • They expelled or killed 10% of the fighting age men of P. Arab Society
      • P. fighting capacity will be diminished even by 1948
  • Why would the Arabs attack the British when they are extremely powerful and can surge 100,000 troops into P.?
    • Because Zionism is ultimately an arm of British imperialism
      • Because of San Remo, because of Balfour
  • Jews watching P. and understand to not attack the British
  • 1936-1939 is a massive Palestinian loss and catastrophe
  • Self-inflicted disaster
  • kills other elite member families in P. who want to take a different strategy in 1937
  • Made by choice with internal debate by P. people
  • P. history books don’t talk about it because its a disaster for them, self-made
  • Bad enough for British that they release the White Paper
    • Seals Jewish immigration to tiny trickle
    • Catastrophe for Jews, but still a validation
      • World is uninhabitable to Jews and nowhere else to go

• and the Nazis

  • Nazi’s are anti-British
  • 1935: German Embassy is a Nazi Embassy flying a Nazi flag in Jerusalem
  • Been on the Nazi side since mid 1930s
  • Creates Nazi group in Eygpts
  • Has plans for Jews in Palestine with Rummel’s push in Africa

• Who Saves the Jews

  • British saves the Jews again in Battle of El-Alamein against Rummel in Africa
  • British again saves the Zionist project, despite many saying Britain turned their back
  • Arab Weakness
    • Islamic honor is the heart of the story.
    • They want Honor and not be so weak
  • Always an external patron

• Every time the Arab world talks about the Jews, there’s always a Patron

• Soviets gave the ok to Czech to supply the Jews with weapons as they saw them as a vanguard of Communism

• PLO & PLN Inspiration

  • Theory: Terrorize the Jews and they will leave
  • 1964: PLO founded on PLN model
  • By 1964, half the Jews in Israel are from the Arab world
  • Story of the FLN and the Jewish flight in 1962 from Algeria is the invalidation of the very strategy

• 1956: War

  • Israel suddenly awaken to the fact their surrounded by new Arab nationalism led by
    • Supplied and funded by the British
  • French forces came from Algeria where they got kicked out
  • French come to Egypt to help take Sinai
  • Hard not to think that Algeria is Palestine

• Zionism used Imperialism, or whoever was powerful of their days

• Arabs are convinced to this day is if it wasn’t for all these external powers supporting Israel, they’d fall

• P. started the BDS movement in Durban in 2001

• P. guide this Western movement to stop America from support Israel

• What does Zionism feel like to Palestinians?

  • Colonialism

Three recurring themes for a Century:

• Betrayal of Arab and Islamic world

  • Israel and Palestine are a symbol of Islamic weakness and failure of Islam to meet the modern age
  • Reason why it doesn’t care about Assad’s massacre’s, Yemen quarter million dead, Sudan quarter million displaced.
    • Not telling a story about them!
  • But I/P is a story of Islam and Islam’s weakness
  • How pathetic it is to be on the retreat when the Jews are refugees
  • Better to be pushed back by a great Empire, than by the dregs of humanity. Running way from pathetic pogromists.
  • The story of Islamic renewal is the story of I/P.
  • Reason why Hamas is loved even when its hated
  • Israel is the symbol
• • He does not believe in non-violence
  • Coercive nonviolence
  • Believes deeply in the power of violence, just the other person’s violence
  • Looked for places that the PD would respond with massive violence, he needed the violence
  • They served their role beautifully to show everyone; forced his story of justice on the TVs of white America
  • Injustice is hard to see so you need to make the Injustice power and unlookawayable
  • King forced the conversation
  • “I Have a Dream” speech
    • Heat of the Speech is the ‘check’
    • Point to be who you claim to be

      	In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. [Avalon Project - I have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr; August 28, 1963](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/mlk01.asp)
      

• Tragic conflicts

  • Every side has a point
  • Every side wants justice
  • Reach out to the justice on the other side
  • Not zero-sum
  • Making peace with who the other side claims to be
  • Jewish acceptance that they are refugees with nowhere to go

• Why is Abbas hated?

  • Because his own argument is that he’s Chamberlain