The magazine also said in its mail that while the organisation encourages free expression and constructive political debate, it has a zero tolerance policy towards hate speech.
Unless you are going back to the war with the Romans, the Jews were not a persecuted minority in that region any more than any other minority, which would include the Arabs themselves seeing as they were controlled by the Ottomans for hundreds of years previous. The Jews were tolerated, and there was a very small religious community living in Jerusalem during the hundreds of years of Ottoman control that got along perfectly fine. The greater diaspora, especially in Eastern Europe through the 18th and 19th centuries was, however, constantly persecuted and were victims of numerous pogroms.
The Zionist movement was a reaction to the fact that European countries could not be trusted. It was a common cycle that the Jews would make a living for themselves, beginning to think that they could finally establish a home but then get attacked, scapegoated, and forced to flee. It was the Eastern European Jews fleeing such pogroms who would make up the majority of the first settlers of the Zionist mission in Palestine.
All this is simply to say that when people claim “oh they’ve been fighting there for thousands of years” and “the Jews were being persecuted there for so long” is not accurate. There really has not been a Jewish presence in the region since the Jewish revolt was put down by the Romans 2,000 years ago. While the current conflict is decades old, it is entirely related to the circumstances around the founding of Israel.
This is not entirely accurate. For most of history Jews were tolerated in the region, but even then they were systematically discriminated against through the legal system that would for instance not allow a Jew to testify against a Muslim in court or subject jews and other minorities to taxes not levied on Muslims.
By the late 19th and early 20th century the Muslim world began engaging in the same sort of anti-semitism and pogroms that had mostly been limited to Europe prior. This did largely have its roots in the European influence on Middle Eastern nations but nevertheless the rise in anti-semitism(for lack of a better word since most parties are semitic) in the middle east predated the formation of Isreal in 1948.
It is certainly true that this discrimination was less than they faced in Europe for most of the history of the middle east, but being better than that is a very low bar.
While yes, they were discriminated against in the region, I would argue that was the case for any non-Muslim, and not targeted at Jews specifically. Compared to what they put up with in Europe at the hands of the Christians, like the inquisition and pogroms, having to deal with paying the jizyah tax and being treated as not full citizens seemed like a better outcome.
The Ottomans were no saints, but Ottoman landlords were more than happy to rent and sell land to Zionist settlers in Palestine during the late 19th and early 20th century. These settlers were at first met with indifference, which only later turned to conflict as more and more of them poored in and the goals of the Zionist movement to establish their own state became apparent.
This is not to say that the Jews did not face injustice and unfair treatment in the Middle East in the centuries leading up to the modern era, however, there is often an argument being made that the Jews have suffered persecution at the hands of non Jewish Middle Eastern people for a thousand years and the insinuation is that this somehow justifies the behavior of the state of Israel. This is a much more modern conflict, with a long list of blame and atrocities to go around on both sides. However, some atrocities from the very earlist Jewish settlers and later state are pretty shocking and not well documented in the west.
Unless you are going back to the war with the Romans, the Jews were not a persecuted minority in that region any more than any other minority, which would include the Arabs themselves seeing as they were controlled by the Ottomans for hundreds of years previous. The Jews were tolerated, and there was a very small religious community living in Jerusalem during the hundreds of years of Ottoman control that got along perfectly fine. The greater diaspora, especially in Eastern Europe through the 18th and 19th centuries was, however, constantly persecuted and were victims of numerous pogroms.
The Zionist movement was a reaction to the fact that European countries could not be trusted. It was a common cycle that the Jews would make a living for themselves, beginning to think that they could finally establish a home but then get attacked, scapegoated, and forced to flee. It was the Eastern European Jews fleeing such pogroms who would make up the majority of the first settlers of the Zionist mission in Palestine.
All this is simply to say that when people claim “oh they’ve been fighting there for thousands of years” and “the Jews were being persecuted there for so long” is not accurate. There really has not been a Jewish presence in the region since the Jewish revolt was put down by the Romans 2,000 years ago. While the current conflict is decades old, it is entirely related to the circumstances around the founding of Israel.
This is not entirely accurate. For most of history Jews were tolerated in the region, but even then they were systematically discriminated against through the legal system that would for instance not allow a Jew to testify against a Muslim in court or subject jews and other minorities to taxes not levied on Muslims.
By the late 19th and early 20th century the Muslim world began engaging in the same sort of anti-semitism and pogroms that had mostly been limited to Europe prior. This did largely have its roots in the European influence on Middle Eastern nations but nevertheless the rise in anti-semitism(for lack of a better word since most parties are semitic) in the middle east predated the formation of Isreal in 1948.
It is certainly true that this discrimination was less than they faced in Europe for most of the history of the middle east, but being better than that is a very low bar.
While yes, they were discriminated against in the region, I would argue that was the case for any non-Muslim, and not targeted at Jews specifically. Compared to what they put up with in Europe at the hands of the Christians, like the inquisition and pogroms, having to deal with paying the jizyah tax and being treated as not full citizens seemed like a better outcome.
The Ottomans were no saints, but Ottoman landlords were more than happy to rent and sell land to Zionist settlers in Palestine during the late 19th and early 20th century. These settlers were at first met with indifference, which only later turned to conflict as more and more of them poored in and the goals of the Zionist movement to establish their own state became apparent.
This is not to say that the Jews did not face injustice and unfair treatment in the Middle East in the centuries leading up to the modern era, however, there is often an argument being made that the Jews have suffered persecution at the hands of non Jewish Middle Eastern people for a thousand years and the insinuation is that this somehow justifies the behavior of the state of Israel. This is a much more modern conflict, with a long list of blame and atrocities to go around on both sides. However, some atrocities from the very earlist Jewish settlers and later state are pretty shocking and not well documented in the west.