Israel-Hamas Conflicts Historical Background
- Jia Han
- Dec 16, 2023
- 7 min read
You probably have heard that recently presidents of three elite American universities (Harvard, UPenn, MIT) were asked to testify in front of Congress. They were criticized for their universities’ failure to tackle anti-semitism. This issue is quite complex and should be analyzed from several angles. In this write-up, I clarify the Israel-Hamas conflicts, which provides the background for further discussion. As in my previous write-ups, my writing is terse. Refer to the references if you have questions.
In a way, the Israel-Arab (not just Hamas) conflicts were prophesied in the Bible (in the Book of Genesis). The relevant event occurred in Genesis 16 about 3800 years ago. You probably have heard that Abraham was the father of three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Strictly speaking, such a claim is wrong, very wrong. If there is only one God, why would He start three religions? He would start only one religion, not three. He did start with only one person named Abraham. Abraham used to live in the city of Harran (in today’s southern Iraq) around 3700-3900 years ago. In Genesis 12 at the age of 75 Abraham was called by God to leave Harran. Genesis 15 was crucial. In it, God promised Abraham that He would bless Abraham and his descendants. 15:6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. This verse is very famous. Martin Luther started the Reformation based on this verse, or more directly Romans 4:3 which quoted it.
Genesis 16 is directly related to Islam. Abraham was already very old but had no descendants. His wife suggested that he take her slave girl Hagar. He did. Hagar gave him a son named Ishmael. There was a prophecy concerning Ismael.
16:12 He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”
Later God visited Abraham again. God told him that His promise was for his son Isaac through Sarah, his wife (Genesis Chapters 17,21). The Quran, the Islam Holy book, claims that Muhammad’s lineage is through Abraham and Ismael. The genealogy of the Bible is from Abraham and Isaac (one may refer to Matthew 1 and Luke 3 for the details). So Muslims follow an ‘alternative history.’
Genesis 16:12 prophesied conflicts or hostility. The difficulties were caused by Abraham’s sin (sin means separation from God not necessarily crime). The sin was twofold. In creation, God’s original intention of marriage was one man and one woman (Matthew 19:1-12, Genesis 2:24, Ephesians 5:22-33). Therefore, it was a sin for Abraham to take a concubine. Abraham’s other sin was to take things into his own hands. God made a promise to Abraham. Abraham did not trust God enough but tried through his way to obtain heirs. (There are numerous passages in the Bible teaching a believer should follow God but not go before Him.)
Most regard Judaism began around 1400 BC. That was when Moses gave the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament). Torah has many detailed laws, rituals, etc. The Bible consists of the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT). Both Judaism and Christianity agree that the OT was from God. Christianity started as a branch of Judaism. The relationship between Judaism and Christianity is complicated. One may consult Romans 9-11 for some ideas.
The (political) history of the Middle East is long and complicated. I found Dr. Henry Abramson’s videos [1-3] very good: concise, short, objective, and largely accurate (especially for the length). He has a Ph.D. in history supervised under a noted Jewish professor, thus should be reliable. I will not repeat the details, only point out that they largely agree with the Bible and my previous knowledge. One thing that I wish to call your attention to is the name Palestine. Palestine was the land of ancient Israel under another name (this point was vague to me earlier). God gave ancient Israel the land of Judea (in the Old Testament). However, Israelis sinned against God. So as a punishment, God let Israelis enslaved in Babylon. Later after being released from captivity, some Israelis tried several times to reestablish an independent nation. There were several uprisings between 68 AD and 138 AD. At that time, Judea was one province of the Roman Empire. Romans were quite tolerant of provinces within its empire but heavy-handed against rebellions. Any rebellion against Rome would be ruthlessly suppressed. Jews’ uprisings were crushed. These were noted events in Roman history. Interested readers may consult [4-6]. What is relevant to us is that after that the Romans changed the name of the land to Palestine so that the original name Judea may be forgotten. So Jews were natives of Palestine. One of the videos explains this well. Dr. Abramson uses a good allegory for Arabs’ and Jews’ competing claims for this land. (Israelis took the land from prior residents as recorded in the Bible, but that is another story).
Now fast forward to the end of the Ottoman Empire. Modern conflicts in the ME produced the current geopolitics. (The present time is the era of nation-states, which started with American Independence and the French Revolution, i.e. the late eighteenth century.) The Ottoman Empire lasted about 500 years until the end of WWI. At that time, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and many other places were part of Otteman. Thus, people often moved around. There was no such notion of which area belonged to which ethnicity. In other words, it was legal to move around within the Empire. Trouble began when the Ottoman was defeated at the end of WWI. Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, etc. were managed by England and France, the victors of WWI. The videos gave a good description of these and later development. The most serious challenge was that Muslims there wanted to get rid of all Jews in Palestine.
There was another important line of development, Islamists. The root of Islamism and Islamic terrorists is beyond this write-up because they are very complicated (if you want to learn, I can recommend 20+ good books). What is relevant here is that they most originated in Egypt and among them, the Muslim Brotherhood is the largest and most influential one. Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. A famous figure of the Muslim Brotherhood was Ayman al-Zawahiri. Ayman al-Zawahiri was a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. After suffering torture in Egypt, he was released from prison. Later he fled to Bin Laden. At the time Bin Laden’s major enemies were Saudi rulers. al-Zawahiri persuaded Bin Laden to change his top enemy to the US. (This involved some theological arguments.) Bin Laden agreed. This eventually led to the 911 terror attack.
One Muslim Brotherhood’s goal had been to eradicate Jews (killing or driving them out) from Palestine and the ME. (below some are quoted from a commentary [7]) In the 1930s and 1940s, the Grand Mufti (the most senior Islamic religious leader) of Jerusalem and leader of the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement, Amin al-Husseini, joined forces with the Nazis.
The Charter of Hamas is to kill or drive out all Jews in Palestine. From reports of the Oct.7 terrorist attack, Hamas is as evil as ISIS [8]. Furthermore, Gaza under Hamas teaches kindergarteners to kill Jews. Schools train school children how to attack Israel. Because Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology, which hates present Arab governments. In their view, these rulers compromise Islamic principles. They create trouble wherever they stay. That is why Arab nations in the region do not welcome Gaza Palestine refugees. They are afraid that some might be loyal to Hamas.
Now a word to everyone. One should weigh carefully before taking a stand on this issue. It was prophesied in the Bible (both in the OT and in the NT) that God will revive Israel, although it is unclear how and when. The Israel-Arab conflicts are indeed very complex. If you do not understand or are unsure, just be quiet. Do not side with Hamas. Most Mainland Chinese know nothing of political science, International Relations, or the Bible, yet want to offer solutions to the Israel-Arab conflicts. If you get it wrong, you might become a road-kill of God’s work. Do you think that you are smarter or know better than God?
References:
(1) All Jewish History in Under 18 Minutes
(2) Origins of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict Part I: to 1949
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5poopqMOd5o&t=66s (11-20-2023)
(3) Gaza in Jewish History
(4) Simon Baker, "Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire," BBC Digital, 2010
(5) Greg Woolf, Rome: An Empire's Story, Oxford Univ, 2012.
(6) Greg Woolf ed. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Roman World, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
(7) Silence over Hamas hate shames our politicians CLAIRE LEHMANN AU 10-13, 2023 p11
….. The ideology of Hamas – the terrorist organisation that carried out the attacks on October 7 – fuses Islamism with Nazism ……. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement, Amin al-Husseini, joined forces with the Nazis. …. Al-Husseini met with Adolf Hitler and other Nazi officials, and helped establish a Muslim wing of the Schutzstaffel (SS). In a German propaganda newsreel shared by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, you can watch Hitler declare the “struggle against a Jewish homeland in Palestine” was part of the “struggle against the Jews”. And that when the German army had extended all the way to the Middle East, Germany would issue “an assurance to the Arab world that the hour of liberation was at hand”. It would then be al-Husseini’s
“responsibility to unleash the Arab action that he has secretly prepared”.
After the war, al-Husseini escaped prosecution for war crimes, but he was welcomed into Eqypt as a hero. “Germany and Hitler are gone, but Amin Al-Husseini will continue the struggle,” wrote the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna.
Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Today’s Hamas militants are the ideological descendants of al-Husseini, the Nazi collaborator who plotted with Hitler to eradicate the Jews. …
(8) Israel Gaza: Hamas raped and mutilated women on 7 October, BBC hears
(9) Arab Muslim Speaks About Her Life in Israel
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