Tennessee WordSmith: A Liberal Dose, July 18, 2024 "A Brief History of Israel and Palestine Part 6"

A Liberal Dose

July 18, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“A Brief History of Israel and Palestine, Part 6”

So much is going on, I debated with myself whether to return to my ongoing series about the history of Palestine this week. I decided to do so, for two reasons. One, whether we’re looking at Biden’s age issues and the fate of his campaign or the assassination attempt on Trump, it is all still unfolding as I write this. Two, it might be a good idea for all of us to review the history of Palestine and the violence associated with it, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves of what can happen when hate prevails in a region and what it can lead to.

Last time, we had finally reached the nineteenth century, a time during which the Ottoman Empire of Turkey had ruled over Palestine for 400 years. The Turks were Muslim, but many Arabs chafed under the rule of the Ottomans. A growing sense of Arab nationalism was developing by the late nineteenth/early twentieth century; many adherents to this philosophy wanted Arabs to have control of their own lands, while others remained loyal to the Ottoman Empire but wanted Arab rights recognized. There were also different types of Arab nationalism. To some, this meant that the whole Arabic-speaking world was one nation. To others, it meant that Arab groups in individual countries ruled over by the Turks should have a strong sense of nationalism to those countries and make them independent from the Ottomans, under Arabic rule.

You might be surprised to learn that Russia played a significant role in what happened next.

In the Russian Empire, Jews were viciously persecuted and were frequently the target of pogroms -from a Russian word meaning destruction. The dictionary defines a pogrom as a violent riot with the goal of massacring or expelling Jews from a region. This activity was especially heightened in the 1880s, which is when the word first appeared -but antisemitic violence had been common throughout Europe for many centuries. Nonetheless, it intensified in Russia at this time. Countless Jews were murdered, sometimes whole communities. This contributed to large numbers of Jews fleeing the Russian Empire, many of whom immigrated to the United States (even the mouse-versions, if you know your Fievel). It also led to a growing sense among many Jews that they needed the safety and security of a country of their own, something they had not had since the Roman Empire and the diaspora (or dispersal of Jews to many regions of the world).

Whereas some Jews proposed forming a colony elsewhere in the world, such as in Africa, eventually a majority of people calling for a Jewish homeland supported making it in Palestine, the location of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah from which their ancestors had been exiled. This movement quickly became known as Zionism, for Mount Zion -a large hill in Jerusalem, which in the Hebrew scriptures and later tradition referred symbolically to all of Israel. The movement even designed their own flag in 1891, the very same flag used by the modern nation of Israel today.

This goal was initially pursued by buying land in Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, and establishing Jewish settlements there. Many local Muslims resented their Turkish rulers selling away their land to outsiders, who were growing in number, which heightened tensions between the Ottoman Empire and Arab-speaking peoples in the Levant. To complicate matters further, Russia was ALSO viciously persecuting Muslims in the Russian Empire, causing many of THEM to migrate -and most were migrating to the Ottoman Empire, introducing even more Muslim diversity in the region and even more nationalism and resistance to the Turks. Since the Ottoman and Russian Empires were arch-enemies, the Turks were very suspicious of the new Muslim immigrants coming from Russian territory.

In 1914, the Ottoman Empire/Turkey entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers (primarily Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Various Arab nationalist groups united during the war, and -encouraged by Britain -revolted against Turkey, fighting on the side of the Allies in hopes of establishing a single Arab nation that would stretch from Syria to Yemen. Britain promised to recognize such a new nation, in return for the Arabs’ help in the war (this is what the movie Lawrence of Arabia is about).

Instead, when the war was over, Britain joined other European powers in dividing up the Middle East among themselves. And, before fighting had even stopped, Britain promised to help establish a Jewish national homeland… in Palestine.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE