brihaspati wrote:
This is news to me - so Christians came before the Babylonians? Well yes, Babylonians took part of them - mostly the elite - to Babylon. But there were sufficient numbers left behind because this gave rise to sectarian difference later on between those who had been allowed to stay behind and those who later on returned. Why miss conveniently this piece of history and also the fact that Cyrus allowed the Jews to return? Neither the internal difference nor the question of return would have arisen if the Jews had all been "cleaned up"! From there it did not go straight to Roman rule. It went through the Greek and then they had the Macabean uprising leading to an independent principality. Romans destroyed the temple built by Herod but complete expulsion of all Jews is hard to prove. Byzantines did not expel Jews in any significant numbers, and in fact Jews were persecuted by the Goths on suspicion of being collaborators of the Byzantines.
Okay, let me just be clear, I was just talking off the top of my head, so I may have got bits wrong and I do apologise for that. So lets take a look at history properly.
Taken from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... _of_Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... uslim_rule
Here is a nice timetable:
1050CE - Israel becomes independent.
950 BCE - Kingdom splits into 2, i.e Israel in the north, Judah in the South.
Israel becomes conquered by Assyrians and the elite is expelled to Babylon.
The Babylonian army, under the commandment of Nebuzaradan,[1] also named "chief executioner" [chief Headsman] by the Bible, had destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem. The king of Judah, Zedekiah, was forced to watch his own two sons being slaughtered, and thereafter, his own eyes were put out and he was exiled to Babylon (2 Kings 25).[2]
The population of the middle class and above was also deported alongside King Zedekiah, whereas the Kingdom of Judah was left only with the poor ones.
My comment:These people part of the 10 tribes expelled, where we find a population in India too.
Cyrus declares jews are allowed to return - They build the 2nd temple.
Under Persian rule and protection, the Zion Returnees settled in what became known as Yehud Medinata.[3] Yehud, or Judah, was a self-governing Jewish province under the ruling of the Persian Empire, and included a small piece of territory out of the Land of Israel which contained Jerusalem and Judea, which even issued their own small silver coins inscribed with the three letters Yehud.
The Yehud Medinata automony has known to inspire the future generation of Jews, their notion of their own national identity and aspirations, the need to end 2000 years of exile since the Babylon captivity and to continue to make Aliyah to the Land of Israel. The ancient name Yehud Medinata also resembles to the name of modern Hebrew name Medinat Yisrael (the State of Israel).
Greek rule - Alexander the great.
A deterioration of relations between hellenized Jews and religious Jews led the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes to impose decrees banning certain Jewish religious rites and traditions. Consequently, the orthodox Jews revolted under the leadership of the Hasmonean family, (also known as the Maccabees).
The ensuing Maccabbee Revolt (167 BCE) began a twenty-five-year period of Jewish independence potentiated by the steady collapse of the Seleucid Empire under attacks from the rising powers of the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire. However, the same power vacuum that enabled the Jewish state to be recognized by the Roman Senate c. 139 BCE was next exploited by the Romans themselves.
The deaths of Pompey (48 BCE), Caesar (44 BCE), and the related Roman civil wars relaxed Rome's grip on Israel, allowing a brief Hasmonean resurgence backed by the Parthian Empire. This short independence was rapidly crushed by the Romans under Mark Antony and Octavian.
. In 66 CE, Judeans began to revolt against the Roman rulers of Judea. The revolt was defeated by the Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus. The Romans destroyed much of the Temple in Jerusalem and, according to some accounts, stole artifacts from the temple, such as the Menorah. Altogether, 1,100,000 Jews perished during the revolt and another 97,000 were taken captive.
Judeans continued to live in their land in significant numbers, and were allowed to practice their religion, until the 2nd century when Julius Severus ravaged Judea while putting down the Bar Kokhba revolt. 985 villages were destroyed.
Banished from Jerusalem, the Jewish population now centred on Galilee.
From:
http://www.science.co.il/israel-history.asp
After the exile by the Romans, the Jewish people migrated to Europe and North Africa. In the Diaspora (scattered outside of the Land of Israel), they established rich cultural and economic lives, and contributed greatly to the societies where they lived.
---
Jews at this time in the province of Palestine were living under the oppressive rule of the Byzantines under whom there were two more Jewish revolts and three Samaritan revolts. Under the oppression, Jews still lived in at least forty-three Jewish communities in Palestine: twelve towns on the coast, in the Negev, and east of the Jordan, and thirty-one villages in Galilee and in the Jordan valley.
In 438, The Empress Eudocia removed the ban on Jews' praying at the Temple site and the heads of the Community in Galilee issued a call "to the great and mighty people of the Jews": "Know that the end of the exile of our people has come"!
In about 450, the Jerusalem Talmud is completed.
In 613, a Jewish revolt against the Byzantine Empire coming into aid of the Persian invaders erupted. The Jews gained autonomy in Jerusalem for 5 years but were frustrated with its limitations.
At that time the Persians betrayed the agreements with the Jews and Jews were again expelled from Jerusalem. The Byzantine Emperor Heraclius then managed to overcome the Persian forces with the aid of Jewish leader Benjamin of Tiberias.
Nevertheless, he betrayed the Jews too and put thousands of Jewish refugees to flight from Palestine to Egypt.
A testament of the cruelty of the Byzantines towards the Jews can be noted in the great number of Jews who fled remaining Byzantine territories in favour of residence in the Caliphate over the subsequent centuries
Now under Islamic empires:
During early Islam, Leon Poliakov writes, Jews enjoyed great privileges, and their communities prospered. There was no legislation or social barriers preventing them from conducting commercial activities. Many Jews migrated to areas newly conquered by Muslims and established communities there. The vizier of Baghdad entrusted his capital with Jewish bankers. The Jews were put in charge of certain parts of maritime and slave trade. Siraf, the principal port of the caliphate in the 10th century CE, had a Jewish governor.[11]
Under the various regimes the Jews suffered massacres and were forced to flee the inland villages towards the coast. They were subsequently induced to return inland after the coastal towns had been destroyed. Nevertheless, the Jews still controlled much of the commerce in Palestine. According to Arab geographer Al-Muqaddasi, the Jews worked as "the assayers of coins, the dyers, the tanners and the bankers in the community."[4] During the Fatimid period, many Jewish officials served in the regime.[4] Professor Moshe Gil documents that at the time of the Arab conquest in 7th century CE, the majority of the population was Jewish.
MFA, Israel: The imposition of heavy taxes on agricultural land compelled many to move from rural areas to towns, where their circumstances hardly improved, while increasing social and economic discrimination forced others to leave the country. By the end of the 11th century, the Jewish community in the Land had diminished considerably and had lost some of its organizational and religious cohesiveness.
Under crusader period:
n 1099, along with the other inhabitants of the land, the Jews vigorously defended Jerusalem against the Crusaders. When the city fell, the Crusaders gathered them in a synagogue and set it alight. In Haifa, the Jews almost single-handedly defended the town against the Crusaders, holding out for a whole month, (June-July 1099).[4] At this time there were Jewish communities scattered all over the country, including Jerusalem, Tiberias, Ramleh, Ashkelon, Caesarea, and Gaza. Jews were not allowed to hold land in the Crusader period but concentrated their efforts on the commerce in the coastal towns during times of quiescence. Most of them were artisans: glassblowers in Sidon, furriers and dyers in Jerusalem.[4]
Under Mamluk's: Jews still there. Upto 30 Jewish centres existed.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... e_pop.html
During 1517 total population: 300,000 est. 5,000 jewish 295,000 non jewish residents
Ottomon period:
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Middle East and North Africa estimates the Jewish population of the Palestine region at
"approximately 10,000 during the first half-century of Ottoman rule. Bold development projects for reviving the Holy Land were conceived by Jewish courtiers in Constantinople, such as Don Garcia Mendes and Don Joseph Nasi. Jerusalem, Tiberias and above all, Safad, became centres of Jewish spiritual and commercial activity... Many of the gains achieved by Islamic Jewry during the 16th century were lost over the next 200 years ... as Ottoman rule became more inefficient, corrupt and religiously conservative."[8]
In Safed, the Jews developed a number of branches of trade, especially in grain, spices, and cloth. They specialised once again in the dyeing trade. Lying halfway between Damascus and Sidon on the Mediterranean coast, Safed gained special importance in the commercial relations in the area.
The 8,000 or 10,000 Jews in Safed in 1555 grew to 20,000 or 30,000 by the end of the century.
Then came the british mandate.
But a lot of this depends on who you ask:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... alem1.html
The next important phase in the history of Jerusalem was the conquest of the Ottoman Turks at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Turkish sultan then became responsible for Jerusalem. The Holy Land was important to the Turks only as a source of revenue; consequently, like many of their predecessors, they allowed Palestine to languish. They also began to impose oppressive taxes on the Jews.
Neglect and oppression gradually took their toll on the Jewish community and the population declined to a total of no more than 7,000 by the end of the seventeenth century. It wasn't until the nascent Zionist movement in Eastern Europe motivated Jews to return to Palestine that the first modern Jewish settlement was established -- in Petah Tikvah in 1878.
So... pre partition there were 1.2million Arabs and 600,000 jews. It is more than agreed that majority of jews lived in Europe - Between 800 and 1100 there were 1.5 million Jews in Christian Europe.
Persians expelled the Jews!!! In the Persian(Parthian)-Byzantine conflict, a portion of the Jews did side with the Byzantines. Did it lead to expulsion? Byzantium actually won in the end (Heraclius). Ah yes, the population dwindled under "taxation" - of course, there cannot be any role of forced conversions or genocides at the hands of Islamics!! of course - but why should taxation decrease population? I thought the Hamas claimed that Jews had always been protected under Islam! Okay those who could not pay the taxes converted? Migrated out? Are you saying that Jews were subjected to discriminatory taxation beyond their means - by the Muslims? For otherwise all populations should have decreased under taxation and not just the Jews!
All of the above answered.
So, I have now disproved your point that it was only Islamic rule who were responsible for jews to leave or be expelled etc. As I originally stated, there were a lot of people who were responsible for jews to leave or immigrate or be expelled.
Okay, Crusaders expelled all Jews - lets say! Kind Muslims let them return [I will post the other side of the story. Since the propaganda here is now turning to Muslims being most kind to the Jews!]. So the Jews were returning already from the time after the Crusades? And their "return" increased? In spite of constant protests and demands that Jews should not be allowed to settle? But you are already saying Jews were there for the previous five hundred years from 1948!!!
There were some jews of course. But doesn't mean, the whole nation of Israel should return to those few jews.
You seem to relish the expression "kicking Israelis out". Assuming that it s no personal problem with you, have you ever thought how you can "kick" a "nation" or whole community out repeatedly? Unless some were definitely not kicked out? Or why allow some one to "return" if they did not have a "homeland" to return to? You are completely suppressing the lead up to the 1948 war. You are now probably even going to deny the antics of the so-called Grand Mufti of the region, the various conflicts and open declarations of intent to expel the Jews, agitating to stop Jewish immigration from the Muslim side. We even know that the Brits actually gave in to this Islamist demand and tried to restrict Jewish inflow. At that stage, Jews were buying land - they were not simply squatting or occupying land.
Okay, yes there was an agititation against Jews. Yes, there were efforts by jews for peaceful settlement. Did the Irgun massacre some muslim villages in order to evict them? Yes. Did muslims massacre jews also? Yes.
They were buying land and they employed only jews, which was worsening the economic situation of the arabs. And add to that more jews fleeing persecution arriving. The British offered to create a jewish homeland in Palestine as the jews refused Uganda, and other locations - because the local population there would have refused to allow them per the jewishvirtuallibrary.
So why was it okay to upset arabs, but not upset local population in australia or Uganda?
Your comparison is fallacious. Jews were in continuous occupation of the land, maybe their numbers dwindled, and they lost out state power. "Kicked out for whatever reasons" is a highly callous attitude.
So that gives someone a fundamental right to kick out the people living there?
Those reasons are all-important. Who kicked whom for what. Those who try to avoid the reasons do so because they perhaps have some thing to hide. In the case of "kicking Jews" - the Islamic reason is out and out ideological, racial and genocidic. Why are you avoiding looking at the Islamic narratives themselves about descriptions about which Muslims kicked "Jews" for what motivation? The Badr wars, the genocide of Banu Quraizah, the battle of Khyber? It is not Judaic claim - it is all there in the most respected texts of Islam!
So it was the muslims who kicked out the jews only?
Your claim of "those who bought" the house is again legally fallacious.
You say the occupants were "kicked out" and new residents bought them from the "possessors". Now if the initial act of "kicking out" was illegal then the subsequent occupation was illegal. If you buy stolen goods or "illegally occupied" property/object then your rights are not legally acceptable. At least not in most modern legal thinking
ummm... okay... fair enough.
So lets take Israel's claim as a precedent. By this definition, A native Indian state should be created in the US - its stolen land, so let the Indians sell their land in New Jersey and give it back to its original inhabitants.
Aborigine's too - Australia to be given back to the aborigines. Good luck in asking those respective current resident's to leave.
(only in Islamic thinking there is a justification for that in the context of property/women obtained through jihad - that "vague" thing you mock, and which is supposed to be non-violent according to you - the basis for this starts in Al Baqara of Quran and explictly mentioned in the Hidaya).
Discuss with an islamic scholar.
