Israel was established in 1948. But Jews lived in the region for thousands of years.
Before Israel existed, here’s what Jews in the Middle East could NOT do:
1. Ride horses.
2. Be eye level with Muslims.
3. Had to pay tax not to be murdered and pillaged.
4. Could not testify against a Muslim in court.
5. Could not bear arms.
6. Could not move freely after certain hours.
7. Couldn’t dress without imposed Jewish symbols (like the yellow stars we saw in the Holocaust.)
In 1941, my grandma survived the Farhud. It was massacre against the Jewish community of Iraq, encouraged by the Nazis. Thousands of Jews were attacked by a mobs, which was backed by the Iraqi government.
My grandma had to flee Iraq - they even took her citizenship. So did with other 150,000 Jews.
Today there are no Jews in Iraq.
They were ethnically cleansed.
This didn’t just happen in Iraq. Jews were ethnically cleansed throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
Almost a million Jew ran for their lives. The only place to take them wasn’t America, or Britain— it was Israel.
Israel saved my Iraqi mother and my Tunisian father.
It will continue to save Jews from everywhere else.
https://t.co/FC49hhSuV0
During the ceasefire, Hamas has:
1. Fired rockets at Israeli civilians.
2. Detonated three bombs targeting IDF troops.
3. Opened fire on Israeli soldiers.
4. Violated the conditions of the hostage-for-prisoners deal by refusing to release mothers and their children together.
5. Denied the Red Cross permission to visit the hostages or provide them with medication.
6. Refused to release the youngest baby from captivity.
7. Held over 170 innocent civilians in captivity, subjecting them to minimal food and torture.
Remember, this is what Hamas considers a ceasefire.
As a teenager in Iraq my Jewish grandmother watched her best friend raped and killed and another friend shot along her 8 siblings and her mother.
150,000 Jews lost everything and were forced to leave to Israel, the only country to accept them. My father and his family were part of 105,000 Tunisian Jews who were forced to leave the country after decades of abuse + violence.
But you won’t hear the stories of oppression and ethnic cleansing of 850,000 Jews from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). You won’t hear about the many Jews who died when their countries turned on them, nor about the lives and communities we once knew. For many Mizrahi (MENA) Jews the world never recognized our collective trauma and it’s always sidelined.
If that’s not enough, when presented with the historical realities of how the Turks and Arabs have oppressed communities all over the Middle East, the international media, scholars and activists from the west will whitewash these crimes of colonialism by claiming the Arab, and later Ottoman Turkish Empires, were peaceful and tolerant, allowing minorities to flourish, even going so far as to say how Europeans led the Turks and Arabs to violence.
Minorities in the Muslim World (57 countries in MENA) sought independence separate from the empires. This was true for the Armenians, Georgians, Assyrians, Kurds, Jews and Lebanese Christians. And before them, even the Greeks and the Serbs. And yes, many of these smaller groups of peoples appealed to Western Europeans for help.
In response to the national awakening of these smaller groups in the late 1900s, the imperialist nations, the Turks, Arabs and Iranians not only sought to preserve their power but even claimed the land of these nations in a process called irredentism. In a narrative flip, these imperial peoples of the region (particularly the Turks and Arabs) claimed the nations seeking independence were stealing land from them and used violence to retrieve it.
From the 1880s until 1923, The Pan-Turks not only sought to unite the various Turkish peoples, but they were also central in claiming the places that Turks had conquered as settler colonialists like Armenia, parts of Greece and the Assyrian parts of present-day Turkey. They were also instigators of genocides in these areas when groups subject to their rule showed any sign of pursuing independence, including the Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians.
Turks ensured the Kurds and Assyrians who remained would be subjected to forced assimilation and they expelled all of the Greeks and Armenians from Turkey. Pan-Arabs, who were also active from the 1880s, claimed areas where Arabs had settled under settler colonialism in the Middle Ages and sometimes later, as original Arab homelands. In aiding the British in overcoming the Ottoman Empire, Arab leaders positioned themselves to take over multicultural countries and pursue their own imperialistic goals.
Thus, Pan-Arabs forced Arab culture and customs upon the Assyrians, Berbers, Maronites and Egyptian Copts. By the 1940s, they had created the Arab League and tried to Arabize all of North Africa and the Middle East. In fact, Pan-Arabs – even more than the Pan-Turks – were different from the Pan-Germans, for example, in accepting the assimilation of non-Arab peoples as Arabs in principle, even though in practice they still viewed them as different.
Hence, the policies of Arabization and forced assimilation. In fact, all of the indigenous peoples of the Middle East – from the Kurds to the Assyrians, to the Jews and the Maronites, many already diminished by mass murder – were present at the Versailles Treaty and called for their national self-determination.
As countless of activists push a PR campaign to commemorate the Palestinian Arab refugees of the Arab war on Israel, I wish they had half the sympathy for the millions that were and still are truly oppressed by imperial power.
Read more: https://t.co/sdGsRYD9HY
Happy Veterans Day! Today, we salute the men and women in uniform who have volunteered to step into harm's way to protect our way of life. Every nation on Earth has problems, including ours. However, the United States of America, the grand experiment built on the foundation of liberty, justice, and freedom, is as close to perfection today as any country has been in history. Yet, we are still far away. If you want to disagree, you can do so loudly, free from violence or imprisonment. That’s America—the town square where ideas can be shared and debated! Unfortunately, that is not the case around the globe, where dissent is met with violence and imprisonment. Do not take that for granted. It’s each of our civic duty to drive this nation closer to perfection. In my opinion, that starts with showing gratitude to those who paved the way and to those who serve and finding a way to be of service ourselves. Thank a Veteran today. The freedoms we often take for granted, our shot at the American Dream—we owe it to the valorous acts of warriors in uniform. Don’t forget that. Okay, Dad! We get it! #VeteransDay
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
One picture is from Gaza; a proscribed terrorist organization, which burned babies alive and raped little girls, just a few weeks ago.
The other picture is a “peaceful march” to support this group, in London, today.
The population of Gaza steadily increases, going from 1.6 million in 2010, to 2.2 million today.
Auschwitz however, which saw 1.3 million people go through its camps, was the place of murder of 1.1 million of them.
Grand Central Station, New York 🇺🇲: Pro-Palestinian 🇵🇸 protesters trying to breach the doors to reach police officers sheltering inside! 🤯
Do you realize that this is not about Israel anymore? It is about Jihad against Western civilization.
The ultimate aim of Hamas is the establishment of a caliphate in the MidEast - opinion
Hamas and other organizations supported by Iran are totally uninterested in a Palestinian state. Their ultimate aim is a caliphate.
https://t.co/cXcZzFPxxL
Those calling for a ceasefire seem to have forgotten that there was a ceasefire in place on October 7.
Hamas broke it the moment it barbarically murdered more than 1400 Israelis on Israeli soil.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
@ShaykhSulaiman You mean the 22-year old activist who last week posted "We will slaughter you and we'll drink your blood and eat your skulls.”
yeah. arrest her.
OPINION: I stand with Israel against any ideology that threatens its existence.
If you value liberty, democracy, equality, human rights, and self-determination, stand with Israel; it is the right thing to do.
https://t.co/zETNYo1BHT
NEW: Video calls for people to "Stop Tearing Them Down" in regards to Israeli hostage signs that continue to be ripped down by pro-Palestine thugs.
In the video however, the only people tearing down the signs are college aged blonde white women.
The video *appears* to be made and sponsored by Lightsight Media and the World Jewish Congress (see end of the video).
Is this really an accurate representation of who is tearing down these signs?
@MarioNawfal Why would anyone take this video?
Why not take care of her? Hug her, clean her up, bandage her wounds?
Looks like the highest priority here is to score some points in the propaganda war and not comfort a traumatized child.
It is simply not believable and makes no sense.