Arab rights movements need to purify themselves of anti Semitism

Some other stories of Arabs in Palestine and elsewhere who opposed the Nazis and helped Jews-

www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3978445,00.html

www.ynet.co.il/articles/mobile/0,7340,L-3427804,00.html
(This one's about the Moroccan king who refused to implement anti Semitic laws ordered by Vichy government)

Robert Satloff's book and documentary Among The Righteous : The Holocaust in Arab Lands document more examples.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/documentary-examines-righteous-arab-actions-during-holocaust

I hope the new curriculum the UAE provide will include positive historical examples of Palestinian Arabs who rejected Fascism, Nazism and anti Semitism, too.

This book is good on Arab journalists & other figures who were directly opposed to the Mufti etc

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arab-Responses-Fascism-Nazism-Attraction/dp/029275745X

I would also extend this point to the modern Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas' history of Holocaust denial and minimisation make it difficult to paint him as a moderate leader (aside from his clear incompetence, which paved the way for Hamas)

https://theintercept.com/2023/09/15/palestinian-authority-mahmoud-abbas-oslo-accords/
(I don't agree with all of this article but it's quite useful on Abbas imo)

This article is by a Palestinian who assisted the PA and is pretty critical of Abbas for the reasons above. Another case of the Palestinians being betrayed by their own leaders.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/palestinian-authority-gaza-hamas/675695/

The quote remained that way in subsequent editions, making it unlikely it was a typo- more likely for emphasis.

Someone can be generally reliable as a historian and still have made some assertions that aren't wholly correct : things aren't black and white.

This was in one of the books he wrote : writing can be proof-checked in a way speaking can't.

I stress I'm not trying to discredit his entire body of work. I think his Palestinian scholarship has a lot of valuable material in (as does Orientalism). I'm a history student : saying a historian isn't wholly reliable doesn't mean discrediting their work as a whole.

I also have a great deal of respect for the joint Israeli-Palestinian orchestra he founded with Daniel Barenboim

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West%E2%80%93Eastern_Divan_Orchestra

Said was also an early scholar on the subject as a whole, which brings its own difficulties.

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice ,
Said's scholarship is not wholly reliable. Eg. He quoted the infamous 'A land without a people for a people without a land' as 'A land without people for a people without land', for one. The original was bad enough, there's no need to exaggerate dishonestly.

I agree with him (& others) though that Paleatinian Arab group identity is not a myth. It's important to remember that Iraqi, Jordanian etc identity are all constructs too, in the sense that these countries did not exist as modern nation-states until after Ottoman Empire (neither did several European countries in their modern form until after WW1 etc). Modern Israeli identity is also a construct : in the sense that modern secular, nation-state Zionism is distinct from earlier hopes of Messianic return, Modern Hebrew is a revival of a language that traditionally was used for worship but not everyday life (even in ancient Israel, Aramaic was the usual one for long periods), Israeli culture had to be designed to accommodate diverse groups of Ashkhenazi, Mizrahi, Ethiopians, Indians etc etc as well as non-Jewish minority groups.

This doesn't make any of those national identities illegitimate : it just exposes the unfairness of saying Palestinian Arab identity did not exist pre-1948 because it wasn't expressed in modern nationalist terms.

As I noted earlier: Palestinian nationalism, like other national movements, is rooted in specific land, villages, and family history — not just in generic Arab identity. This arguably made a secular pan-Arabist like Arafat a poor fit as leader.

I'm no fan (big understatement!) of Arafat, but I agree that him being born in Cairo doesn't rule him out from being Palestinian.

It's a bit more complex than Boris, though. Boris was born in the US, yes, but the same year, his parents returned to the UK. They moved back to the US when he was 2, returned to UK when he was 5, moved to France when he was 9, back to UK when he was 11 and stayed in UK for the rest of his childhood and uni years. So post-toddlerhood, all of BoJo's childhood was spent in the UK, aside from the 2 years in France.

Whereas Arafat spent 4 years in Palestine/Israel, from the ages of 4 to 8. But the rest of his childhood and University years were spent in Egypt, raised by Palestinian parents. This doesn't negate his Palestinian identity but it does make his formative national influences more complex than Boris'. It's fair to say Arafat saw things through a pan-Arab lens, whereas ordinary Arabs from Jaffa or Jerusalem or Nablus or wherever were more likely to think in terms of ancestral homes, culture etc in a more concrete way.

'There is a reason why there is not the same outcry about any other humanitarian issue that does not involve Israel.'

Do you mean that Palestinian Arabs don't speak about any other issue they face that doesn't involve Israel? Or more that Western campaigners for Palestine don't mention it?

This ties into the issue with Arab anti semitism not being critiqued in -movement. There's evidence of people who do oppose Hamas within the West Bank but are intimidated with the threat of death. Also, it seems (like Afghanistan and many other countries), a lot of the issue is complicated by tribal fighting and clan allegiances which would tie into reluctance to speak out about serious problems which are not caused by Israel.

No, I agree it can't be put to one side.

I honestly think the best way to fix this and many other issues would be to reform the coalition system. It was never meant to be permanent. The kingmaker role of the Haredi parties is not sustainable : clearly a growing proportion of Israeli Jews being exempt from army & doing less or no paid work is unworkable, among other issues.

Hamas need to be stopped & dismantled but as you say, civilians there have legitimate grievances and problems which need to be honestly addressed.

Sorry, I wanted to do more than one post as I have a few more points...

Re the Jordan point, I don't really think it's a comparable situation : Jordan annexed the West Bank and granted citizenship to many Palestinians, and millions still live there today. Jordan is not the ancestral homeland. Palestinian nationalism, like other national movements, is rooted in specific land, villages, and family history — not just in generic Arab identity.

I think you have to separate desire to return to ancestral land/have more say in governing that land (obviously Arabs can sit in the Knesset but they have very little say in coalitions) from support for Hamas.

An analogy could be to the IRA. A lot of Catholics in Ireland would have agreed with a united Ireland achieved by peaceful means. That wouldn't by default make them IRA supporters.

Clearly Hamas' 'education' system & political program is violently genocidal and those Palestinian Arabs governed by Hamas are to a large extent dangerous and in need of deradicalisation.

A lot of Israel's Arab citizens though would probably want Arabs to have more say in the Knesset (the coalition system has become increasingly difficult for secular Jews, the majority, as well), some form of refugee return (I think allowing actual refugees, mainly elderly now, would be reasonable potentially- not reasonable to count descendants as refugees too), Rabbinate less involved in marriage etc (the lack of a civil marriage system is a bone of contention beyond Arabs), Arabic as a second official language (which was the case during the British Mandate).

Does this mean any Palestinian Arab, Israeli or living elsewhere, who supports changes like that is automatically a Hamas supporter who wants the elimination of Israel and Israeli Jews?

Palestinian Arabs' desire to return to ancestral homeland predates Hamas and can't be written off as anti Semitic by default.

There definitely are examples of Zionist racism towards Arabs. Tragically also Mizrahi, Bene Israel Indian, Ethiopian etc Jews suffered from leaders who had ironically internalised the racial & cultural hierarchy which had proved so harmful.

But I think the case now is much more complex. Palestinian Arabs within Israel are able to freely practice religion, vote, serve in Parliament (the system is not very conducive to Arab parties, tied to wider Haredi domination issue caused by the coalition system, which must change). There is prejudice but it's more complex than simplistic colonial/apartheid comparisons, within Israel.

The West Bank is more difficult : the settlements need to stop, among other things.

Re Kuwait, it actually hasn't withdrawn from Pisa rankings.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=al-fanarmedia.org/2019/12/arab-countries-rank-poorly-in-latest-pisa-tests/&ved=2ahUKEwir9pf2nqKSAxWZUkEAHZnuDTAQFnoECBkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2_venOggqOAiNxvzJCLlIj

Kuwait & other Arab countries do rank consistently low, and I agree that a lot of leaders use Jews & Israel as a scapegoat/distraction.

I'll address the first point in a minute.

Re Arafat, I'm not sure his origins delegitimise Palestinian identity as a whole. Theodore Herzl was a secular Jew who didn't speak Hebrew, he wanted Israel to be a German-speaking Europeanised state. Had it not been for anti Semitism, he would probably have happily stayed the patriotic Austrian he had initially wanted to be. I say this as someone who admires him very much : the point is not to criticise his vision but to point out that modern Israeli Jewish identity is clearly very different in many ways from what Herzl envisaged. Does that make Israel illegitimate?

I've seen bad-faith arguments against Zionism which point out Herzl considered Uganda. This is of course disingenuous because despite being the founder of Zionism, Herzl was pretty untypical of his own movement. To religious, and of course also many non religious Zionists, Zion could not just be transplanted to Uganda (or anywhere else), and they naturally rejected this.

Other bad-faith arguments are that Israeli (as opposed to Jewish) identity is a modern construct, as Israel now has different borders to the ancient one, speaks a language that lots of ancient Israelites didn't speak except for religious purposes (Jesus, for instance, is thought to have spoken Aramaic not Hebrew), comprises people with very different cultures (French Jews, Iraqi Jews, Ethiopian Beta Israel Jews, Karaite Jews etc etc ), and is to a large extent secular. This is clearly wrong and unfair.

Another good example is Ahad Ha'am. He was one of the early cultural Zionists who promoted revival of Hebrew culture. But by his own admission he grew up not particularly connected to Jewish identity, that came later.

I'm not equating Arafat to these people : I don't think he was a positive figure. But I do think that his upbringing isn't really a gotcha that Palestinians are a post-1948 construct.

That's not accurate.
There WAS definitely migration from Jordan, as well as Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries in the 19th century (as well as some in the 18th) but most historians agree the majority of Palestinian Arabs are descendants of people who lived in Palestine for centuries, with some admixture from nearby regions. This includes fellahin (peasants) linked to specific villages, urban families from Jaffa, Nablus, Jerusalem etc, Bedouin tribes with longstanding ranges there etc
Genetic studies show Palestinians cluster closely with Lebanese, Syrians, Druze and Jews (especially Mizrahi and ancient Levantine lineages) which supports long-term Levantine continuity. Culture like dialects, agricultural practices, cuisine, village traditions all show local evolution, not wholesale transplantation, too.

Supporting Zionism doesn't need to entail denying Palestinians' ancestral connection to the land.

Can I clarify this : are you saying the Arabs living in Palestine then originated from Jordan etc, not from what it is now Israel and the West Bank/Gaza? Or something else?

I'll address this more fully later. For now I'll say it seems a bit tautologous to say that the modern identity of a 'displaced/refugee Palestinian' is 'modern', when by definition it would be since they've only been refugees/displaced since 1948.

I agree that the actions of those Palestinians who want to drive Jews away has been terrible. It's unfair to conflate any and every desire to return to Palestine/have a 2-state solution etc with the desire to commit atrocities though.

May I ask which countries your family was displaced from? I understand if you'd rather not give info.