# Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's Capital; a Proud Moment **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 8, 2017, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854 "2017-12-08T00:17:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/381 "2018-01-12T12:48:32Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I don’t really think it is. The Arab Nationalist movement dates to the 1860s-1870s . It is even more recent than that, the idea of a Watan Arabi on the European nation model. It is an idea and movement of the early 20th century and it is as much the reaction to the European colonial government structures that only penetrate around the time of the WWI. Before 1900 the essence of the movements not pan islamic criticisms of the Ottomane sultanate were more like the local Qaoumi - not the pan arabism of the 20th century that came from particularly the christian arabic speakers (and who directed it against the jewish arabic speakers who until this time were considered more close as both the jewish and the muslim found the christian practice less like theirs than between them). the idea this is a thousands years old conflict or hundreds years old conflict has no basis, until the european colonial empires of the 19th century began their internal liberalization away from the Christianist model and began to use the jewish population for divide and conquer, the Islamic regions were the regions welcoming the Jewish refugees from the oppression and the Ottoman welcomed the Jewish refugees as the positive economic factors and contributors. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/382 "2018-01-12T15:35:31Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > It is even more recent than that, the idea of a Watan Arabi on the European nation model. It is an idea and movement of the early 20th century and it is as much the reaction to the European colonial government structures that only penetrate around the time of the WWI. > > Before 1900 the essence of the movements not pan islamic criticisms of the Ottomane sultanate were more like the local Qaoumi - not the pan arabism of the 20th century that came from particularly the christian arabic speakers (and who directed it against the jewish arabic speakers who until this time were considered more close as both the jewish and the muslim found the christian practice less like theirs than between them). > > the idea this is a thousands years old conflict or hundreds years old conflict has no basis, until the european colonial empires of the 19th century began their internal liberalization away from the Christianist model and began to use the jewish population for divide and conquer, the Islamic regions were the regions welcoming the Jewish refugees from the oppression and the Ottoman welcomed the Jewish refugees as the positive economic factors and contributors. I agree with everything, though I’d add a little caveat to the last sentence - the Jewish population was an insignificant factor in _European_ colonial divide-and-conquer plans. Rather, the roots of local anti-Semitism go back to _local Christian_ attempts to manipulate the local Muslim majority. See for example the 1840 “Damascus Affair”, which originated in a completely traditional accusation of the “Blood Libel” (namely, that Jews were killing non-Jews and taking their blood for religious rituals): > **[Damascus affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_affair)** > > The Damascus affair of 1840 refers to the arrest of several notable members of the Jewish community in Damascus on the accusation of murdering Father Thomas, a Christian monk, and his Muslim servant for the purpose of using their blood to bake matzo, an antisemitic accusation also known as the blood libel. > The Christians were supported in their accusation by the French consul at Damascus, Ulysse de Ratti-Menton, a person described by historians as antisemitic and known to favour Christian mercha... Note that this affair originated due to Christian-Jewish tensions, which in turn were created by Western powers supporting the rights of local Christians. During this period, local Jewish groups tended, on the whole, to have a better relationship with local Muslims than local Christians did - which isn’t to say they were perfect. From the article: > [@](#): > > This incident, which illustrates the tensions that existed between the Jewish and Christian populations of Syria, was notable for being an exception to the rule of Jewish-Muslim relations which during the Tanzimat era in the Ottoman Empire (1839–1920) were generally much better than Christian-Muslim relations due particularly to the economic ascendancy afforded to the Christian community with the relaxation and eventual elimination of the dhimmi status rules in the 1850s. While occasional outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence erupted during this time, far more serious outbreaks of violence occurred between Muslims and Christians and Christians and Druze. Point is that Jews, like every other religious minority, existed on sufferance - relations were generally good, because they generally did not challenge the dhimmi status quo (unlike local Christian groups, who could count on European great-power protectors). They did, however, suffer “occasional outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence” - such as the Damascus Affair. In terms of severity, the Damascus Affair is of course piddling compared with contemporary pogroms in (say) Russia. It is also noteworthy that the Turkish authorities put an end to this Affair after some prodding … but its influence didn’t die in 1840; like the _Protocols of the Elders of Zion_ (originally a Russian fraud), it spread and it is still referenced to this day … > [@](#): > > Accusations of the affair were published in the Egyptian daily Al Akhbar in 2000 and again in 2001 in an article titled The Last Scene in the Life of Father Toma.[10] In 2002, the Middle East Media Research Institute reported that some of the 1840 accusations emerged in a 1983 book The Damascus Blood Libel (1840) by the Syrian Minister of Defense, Mustafa Tlass. The book was described as being influential in international antisemitic circles as a reliable source of information on “ritual murder by the Jews.”[11] In 2007, Lebanese poet, Marwan Chamoun, in an interview aired on Télé Liban, referred to the “… slaughter of the priest Tomaso de Camangiano … in 1840… in the presence of two rabbis in the heart of Damascus, in the home of a close friend of this priest, Daud Al-Harari, the head of the Jewish community of Damascus. After he was slaughtered, his blood was collected, and the two rabbis took it.” Of course, a bit of intercommunal tension, or even the occasional outbreak of violence, was nothing much in significance until European notions of ethno-nationalism took root. What it did, was create a pattern by which increased tensions caused by ethno-nationalism on both sides (and in particular of course the success of Zionism) could be expressed. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/383 "2018-01-12T15:39:40Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > i - not the pan arabism of the 20th century that came from particularly the christian arabic speakers (and who directed it against the jewish arabic speakers who until this time were considered more close as both the jewish and the muslim found the christian practice less like theirs than between them). Yes, but weren’t their Levantine Arab societies calling for an autonomous Arab ruled Greater Syria by the 1890s? And you start seeing antisemitic violence in the Ottoman Empire during the Tanzimat reforms in the 19th century. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/384 "2018-01-12T15:54:37Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I agree with everything, though I’d add a little caveat to the last sentence - the Jewish population was an insignificant factor in _European_ colonial divide-and-conquer plans. > > Rather, the roots of local anti-Semitism go back to _local Christian_ attempts to manipulate the local Muslim majority. yes in the east that is true, my perceptions are more colored in perhaps by the algerian maghrebine experience. > [@Malthus](#): > > I > > Rather, the roots of local anti-Semitism go back to _local Christian_ attempts to manipulate the local Muslim majority. . It is worht also pointing again that the promotion of the Pan Arabism with the idea of the Arab Nation was promoted and had deep roots in the same Arab christians who explicetly excluded the Arab Jews - so that now even writing Arab Jew seems strange and incoherent. But for many centuries it was not at all strange or incoherent. the Pan Arabism was infected at its birth by the Arab Christians importing the ideas from the Russian sources for example like the blood libel, ideas and discourses historically completely alien to the arabic discourse. > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Yes, but weren’t their Levantine Arab societies calling for an autonomous Arab ruled Greater Syria by the 1890s? > > And you start seeing antisemitic violence in the Ottoman Empire during the Tanzimat reforms in the 19th century. al Qaoum not al Watan. the idea of the nation (al Watan is the arabic word that ends up with this meaning in the european sense - Vatan for the Turkish) is a thing that becomes important only in the 20th century, and a movement also reacting to the penetration of the European 19th century ethnic nation state ideas into the Turkish (young Turks). the ethnic violences in the declining years of the Ottomans is tied in my opinion to the upheavel and the economic decline going along with the state decline and governances crisis of weakness and backlash, a classic tale of the scapegoat of the minority in the time of the stress. It is not the ideological concepts of the Wataniya that come later. But even if we argue over 1910 versus 1890, it is clear it is nonsense to describe the current problem as an ancient thing. I agree with malthus, it is the child of the european nationalism ideas and illegiimate child of their imperial games around WWI and after. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/385 "2018-01-12T16:15:57Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > yes in the east that is true, my perceptions are more colored in perhaps by the algerian maghrebine experience. > > It is worht also pointing again that the promotion of the Pan Arabism with the idea of the Arab Nation was promoted and had deep roots in the same Arab christians who explicetly excluded the Arab Jews - so that now even writing Arab Jew seems strange and incoherent. > > But for many centuries it was not at all strange or incoherent. > > the Pan Arabism was infected at its birth by the Arab Christians importing the ideas from the Russian sources for example like the blood libel, ideas and discourses historically completely alien to the arabic discourse. > > al Qaoum not al Watan. > > the idea of the nation (al Watan is the arabic word that ends up with this meaning in the european sense - Vatan for the Turkish) is a thing that becomes important only in the 20th century, and a movement also reacting to the penetration of the European 19th century ethnic nation state ideas into the Turkish (young Turks). > > the ethnic violences in the declining years of the Ottomans is tied in my opinion to the upheavel and the economic decline going along with the state decline and governances crisis of weakness and backlash, a classic tale of the scapegoat of the minority in the time of the stress. It is not the ideological concepts of the Wataniya that come later. > > But even if we argue over 1910 versus 1890, it is clear it is nonsense to describe the current problem as an ancient thing. > > I agree with malthus, it is the child of the european nationalism ideas and illegiimate child of their imperial games around WWI and after. Yup. Way I’d put it is this: Every ethno-nationalist movement looks to history for its justification - first, as to why this particular set of characteristics make it a “nation” in the first place (is it Language? Genetics? Religion? some mixture of those? Something else?); second, as to why its claims to some particular territory make more sense than anyone else’s claims to the same territory. To give a particular example - many (but certainly not all!) of the early Zionists looked to the Bible as justification for (a) why Jews (who often spoke completely different languages, came from totally different ethnic backgrounds - as far removed as Poles and Black Africans in appearance) - nevertheless formed a “nation”; and (b) why that “nation” ought to be located where it is now. This gives the impression that the ethno-nationalist movement in fact spans millennia, back to the time the Old Testament was written! However, this simply isn’t true. If it were not for the rise of exclusionary ethno-nationalism in Europe, Zionism would never have existed; the stories in the OT would simply be an interesting historical origin story, something for historians and archaeologists to puzzle over. It is only in hindsight that any of this looks natural. Any number of other choices are just as “natural” in the formation of a “nation” - for example, looking to language as more important than religion (so a French-speaking Jew living in France is “French” - a point put in dispute by the Dreyfus Affair. Which gave the boost to Zionism.) ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/386 "2018-01-12T17:43:30Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > What does that have to do with Israel? Are you kidding? It’s the very reason for Israel’s formation! What role did the Palestinians play in the holocaust? Or are you saying that the holocaust is the excuse the Zionists used to colonize Palestine? ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/387 "2018-01-12T17:55:30Z")
Let us not be silly and stupid about this. No, the arabs and the palestinians are innocent despite some stupid propagandas of any role in the holocauts - and indeed the Moroccan case the Sultan forbade collaboration with the Vichy French seeking to deport the Moroccan jews in the Vichy collaboration with the Nazis. But the holocaust is the key to the reason why the Israeli state was birthed - pushing the European jewish to seek a safe have they controlled and helped by the European colonial powers that felt the blood debt. _(and in this modern time with the recycling of the blood discourse of anti-jewish to be anti-arabo-muslim, I feel some sympathy for the european Jewish view they could never again trust the europeans - I think I recall this comment from Alessan years ago here and then I did not get it. Now I do,…)._ And so those eggs were broken, and the Palestinian arab payed the price of the European total blood nationalism vision taken to its most extreme and the clumsy stupid hypocrisy of the european imperial powers that did also such a terrible idiotic work in the playing around with the carcasses of the Ottoman cosmpolitanism to deliberately open the door to the Wahhabites and the Ibn Saud for the stupid short term politics… For me it is clearly injust for the Palestinian but then the middle eastern arab states committed their idiocy of the Jewish explusions and participated in the injustice. So here we are. The only useful path forward is the honorable compromise. everything else is sterile propagandas to try to justify an ethnic cleansing by one side or the other (or Bantustan policy that is the near cousin of the ethnic cleansing). ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/388 "2018-01-12T18:02:46Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > You are correct, they usually don’t. > > In fact, most people (in the West) are not even aware that there is a vicious war going on right now in Yemen. > > This speaks more to the point I’m making - that in the West, the perspective found in the news, and repeated by commentators, is skewed. They “care” more about what happens in Israel-Palestine, than in anything else that happens in the ME. > > What you appear to be arguing is that this skewed perspective is correct. When people talk about Black Lives Matter, do they even realize that the VAST majority of black murders are committed by other blacks? Does BLM have a skewed perspective when they talk about violence against blacks? > [@](#): > > I don’t understand why the origins of the “blood” are important. > > Does the fact that Arafat’s father was descended from an Egyptian mother, and he was born in Cairo, make him of “Egyptian blood” and so ineligible from being considered “really” Palestinian? > > If Arafat’s father had won this court battle, Arafat would presumably have grown up in Egypt. > > I think that would be an absurd contention - Arafat became part of the growing ethno-nationalist movement (eventually leading it) that became “Palestinian”. You’re going to have to pick a parameter. Is the criteria, “native Palestinian” “or middle easterner”? Because I agree with you that Palestine is the operative region. If Arafat had tried to carve a nation out of Palestine along with a bunch of Egyptian migres and in the process had driven native Palestinians into refugee camps and oppressed them for 70 years, he would be exactly as bad as the Zionists. > [@](#): > > Similarly, Israelis - whatever their family origins - gave up whatever national identity they may have originally had, and became part of a new ethno-nationalist movement - that became “Israeli”. They even adopted a common language (Hebrew) not actually used by any of their immediate ancestors. They did this in someone else’s country. They moved created a country and wouldn’t let the original inhabitants back in. > [@](#): > > They are now simply a group of people living in the ME - an nationalist ethnicity. And some of them have more of a right to be there than others. > [@](#): > > I have no idea what colonialists say. > > I think you miss the point of what “colonialism” means. > > It means that the “colonialists” are actively working on behalf of the “metropolitan” nation - in short, exploiting the “colony” for the benefit of the “mother” nation. Like the American colonists? Like the Australian colonists? Nah, colonialists are not agents for their mother nation. They are usually criticized for oppressing native population in the place that they colonized. > [@](#): > > The American states were “colonies” of England. They ceased to be “colonies” and became an “independent nation” when they rebelled. The rebellion occurred exactly because the locals claimed that they were being exploited too much on behalf of England - the colonizing power. > > “Colonialists” are, basically, the population more loyal to the mother nation than to the “colony”, that is, the agents of foreign exploitation. > > That’s what distinguishes them from another category: “immigrants”. So the Afrikaaners weren’t colonists? What word would you use for white south Africans? Because that is the word that should probably be applied to Zionists. > [@](#): > > The Jews of Israel were never “colonists” in that sense - they were never the agents of a colonizing power. Turkey, then England, were the “colonizing powers” - the foreign entities that controlled the country. The Jews of Israel were _immigrants_. > > The locals already there may well dislike immigration - see, for example, the Trump phenomenon in the US - but that doesn’t magically transform “immigrants” into “colonists”. Hispanic folks may be immigrating (legally or otherwise) to the US in record numbers - which may transform the demographics, pissing off the existing inhabitants - but, regardless of what any may say, they are not doing so as agents of Mexico, to exploit the US for the benefit of Mexico. Just like the conquistadors were not colonists. > [@](#): > > They are doing so on their own initiative, to benefit themselves. > > The same was true of the Jews immigrating to what was then the territory “Palestine”. The difference is that they wished to establish their own state there - where none had existed before. In the US, there is an already existing nation (the US). There was no existing nation-state called “Palestine”. There was a native people. They now live in refugee camps under the boot of guys like Netanyahu. > [@](#): > > No. > > I don’t consider the fact that the ancestors of many Israeli Jews have “non resident of Palestine” blood of the slightest relevance - any more than I would consider it relevant that Arafat has "“non resident of Palestine” blood and was, in fact, born in Cairo. That fact doesn’t discredit him as a “Palestinian” and it doesn’t discredit an Israeli with (say) a Romanian mother as an “Israeli”. Come back and make that comparison after Arafat has dispossessed native Palestinians and created a country out of their land. > [@](#): > > Not their fault at all. > > What fault is there for those Iraqi Jews - having been ejected from Iraq and immigrated to Israel, the only country that will take them - for living in a country which had displaced those same Palestinian? None. But they are refugees that are dispossessing natives who are in refugee camps. Things would be entirely different if all of this was done with the agreement of the current residents and natives. But it wasn’t. The partition plan was negotiated by Zionists with no participation or agreement from the majority of the people that lived in the region. > [@](#): > > Say this hypothetical Iraqi Jew were to end up living in a house on the very location of a displaced Palestinian family. Is he then expected to admit his fault, and vacate the premises - and presumably go back to Iraq? He doesn’t have to go back to Iraq. > [@](#): > > But Iraqis have no doubt long ago taken the place _his_ ancestors came from. They are unlikely to admit their fault in turn and vacate the premises for our Iraqi Jew. Plus, Iraq is a bit devastated by war at the moment. Sure, and fuck the Iraqis for doing it. But how does Iraq’s injustice towards that jew justify Israel’s injustice towards the Palestinian? > [@](#): > > You can’t turn back the clock in this way; it is neither just nor practical. Not just for who exactly? I bet the Palestinian refugee sees at least a little justice in it. Of course its not practical but the negotiating stance of the Zionists has been incredibly brazen and unapologetic about the injustice they have served upon the Palestinians. Chutzpah in the perjorative sense seems to be applicable here. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/389 "2018-01-12T18:03:55Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Many date the violence to having the Brits divvy up the Middle east but others date it back to the Crusades or even earlier. So it’s a reasonable position, even if a minority one. I don’t remember Zionists being involved in the crusades. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/390 "2018-01-12T18:08:26Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I don’t really think it is. The Arab Nationalist movement dates to the 1860s-1870s The modern Zionist movement dates to the 1880s-1890s, or if you really want to push it back as far as you can, Montfiore’s efforts to encourage Jewish settlement of Palestine in the 1830s. So while there’s always that temptation to find ancient roots to conflict, this has modern roots. There have been arab states, particularly muslim arab states in the region for a long long time. They fought the crusaders mentioned a little bit further up. Sultanates, caliphates, kingdoms, etc. Then the Ottomans came and took over for a while but thearab nationalist movements were a thorn in their side pretty much the entire time, haven’t they. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/391 "2018-01-12T18:14:09Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What role did the Palestinians play in the holocaust? > Or are you saying that the holocaust is the excuse the Zionists used to colonize Palestine? That’s not the issue (no, the Arabs and Palestinians had nothing to do with it). You said the Holocaust (is your lack of capitalization on purpose? if so, why?) had nothing to do with the formation of Israel. That’s immensely false. Because of the Holocaust, hundreds of thousands of Jews felt a desperate need for a state of their own in which they could guarantee their own security with a state behind them. Many had already moved to the land that later became Israel, and many more would follow them, due to that desperate need. That’s a fact, and it’s surprising that anyone with any knowledge of history would state anything to the contrary. That doesn’t justify any particular displacement of peoples or other injustices. But it’s a historical fact that the Holocaust was the direct motivator for the formation of Israel as a Jewish state. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/392 "2018-01-12T18:17:16Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > There have been arab states, particularly muslim arab states in the region for a long long time. They fought the crusaders mentioned a little bit further up. Sultanates, caliphates, kingdoms, etc. Then the Ottomans came and took over for a while but thearab nationalist movements were a thorn in their side pretty much the entire time, haven’t they. If you mean “arab nationalist” movements were a thorn in the side of the Othman over centuries, no this is not in any way the case. It is only the WWI decade. The states of the Medieval period were not the Arab in any case. After the fall of the Abbasids, the states in the middle east region are dominated by the miltiary elites of the turkish and the kurdish and the persian background, not Arab - not by the blood or the ethnicity The famous Saladin, Salah Ad-dine al Ayoubi was a Kurd for example. Writing Arabism back to that period is complete nonsense for the history. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/393 "2018-01-12T19:05:53Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > That’s not the issue (no, the Arabs and Palestinians had nothing to do with it). You said the Holocaust (is your lack of capitalization on purpose? if so, why?) had nothing to do with the formation of Israel. Why would I call it the Holocaust and then mean something by not capitalizing it? And why should the Palestinians suffer because of the Holocaust? > [@](#): > > That’s immensely false. Because of the Holocaust, hundreds of thousands of Jews felt a desperate need for a state of their own in which they could guarantee their own security with a state behind them. Many had already moved to the land that later became Israel, and many more would follow them, due to that desperate need. That’s a fact, and it’s surprising that anyone with any knowledge of history would state anything to the contrary. Once again, why should the Palestinians pay the price? > [@](#): > > That doesn’t justify any particular displacement of peoples or other injustices. But it’s a historical fact that the Holocaust was the direct motivator for the formation of Israel as a Jewish state. Of course it was the driving factor behind the huge migration of Jews into Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s. But as you say, how does that justify ANYTHING? How does the Holocaust even enter into the argument between Zionists and Palestinians about Israel? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/394 "2018-01-12T19:11:22Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > If you mean “arab nationalist” movements were a thorn in the side of the Othman over centuries, no this is not in any way the case. It is only the WWI decade. > > The states of the Medieval period were not the Arab in any case. After the fall of the Abbasids, the states in the middle east region are dominated by the miltiary elites of the turkish and the kurdish and the persian background, not Arab - not by the blood or the ethnicity > > The famous Saladin, Salah Ad-dine al Ayoubi was a Kurd for example. > > Writing Arabism back to that period is complete nonsense for the history. The Abbasid era ended in 1517, exactly when the Ottomans showed up. AFAICT there have been attempts to create a Saudi Arabia for a long time. They had wars and stuff, didn’t they? Perhaps we have different definitions of arab. What do you mean by arab? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/395 "2018-01-12T19:20:31Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And some of them have more of a right to be there than others. I won’t reply point by point, as it is getting repetitive - but this single sentence is really the crux of the disagreement: that “blood” or “race” should give one ethnicity more rights than another. I disagree that it should. > [@](#): > > So the Afrikaaners weren’t colonists? What word would you use for white south Africans? Because that is the word that should probably be applied to Zionists. No. They were one African ethnicity oppressing others. > [@](#): > > Just like the conquistadors were not colonists. Conquistadors were operating expressly on behalf of Spain. > [@](#): > > Come back and make that comparison after Arafat has dispossessed native Palestinians and created a country out of their land. Non-responsive to the point. > [@](#): > > But how does Iraq’s injustice towards that jew justify Israel’s injustice towards the Palestinian? It doesn’t. However, undoing one past injustice now inevitably requires committing future injustices. > [@](#): > > Not just for who exactly? I bet the Palestinian refugee sees at least a little justice in it. Of course its not practical but the negotiating stance of the Zionists has been incredibly brazen and unapologetic about the injustice they have served upon the Palestinians. Chutzpah in the perjorative sense seems to be applicable here. Every nation state is brazen and unapologetic about the wrongs that went into its existence - until the past is safely buried. See for example the US, Canada, Great Britain, etc. It is foolish to continually butt heads over that. If you wait for those enjoying the power of the status quo to admit their past errors before making any progress, you will wait a long time, and not make any progress. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/396 "2018-01-12T19:27:15Z")
Damuri, It’s “Jew” not “jew”. To add to what Ramira is saying(and apologies to her if I get it wrong), Arab national consciousness is a very modern and recent development. The term “Arab” when used was largely a pejorative and Arabic speaking people, in general didn’t see themselves as “Arabs” any more than modern Americans see themselves as “English”. People identified themselves by their religious background or the area they came from. In fact, the movement for Arab National consciousness was largely pushed by Arabic speaking Christians who were trying to gain acceptance from Arabic speaking Muslims. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/397 "2018-01-12T19:28:45Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The Abbasid era ended in 1517, exactly when the Ottomans showed up. Ouch. No. > **[Abbasid Caliphate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid_Caliphate)** > > The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (/əˈbæsɪd, ˈæbəsɪd/; Arabic: الْخِلَافَة الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, romanized: al-Khilāfa al-ʿAbbāsiyya) was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes its name. They ruled as caliphs for most of the caliphate from their capital in Baghdad in modern-day Iraq, after having overthrown the Umayyad Caliphate in the Abbasid The “Abbasid Caliphate” existed in a shadowy form as exercising some sort of religious authority in Cairo until the Turks arrived, but their actual political power had evaporated centuries earlier. That is not what is meant by the “Abbasid Caliphate” any more than people usually say “the Roman Empire era lasted until the Ottomans showed up”, because the last emperors of Byzantium were terminated by the same Ottoman Turks. Your position is the equivalent of claiming that the Romans still ruled (say) France during the 14th century AD, because there was still an emperor in Byzantium. It’s an absurdity. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/398 "2018-01-12T19:47:33Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Why would I call it the Holocaust and then mean something by not capitalizing it? > > And why should the Palestinians suffer because of the Holocaust? > > Once again, why should the Palestinians pay the price? > > Of course it was the driving factor behind the huge migration of Jews into Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s. But as you say, how does that justify ANYTHING? How does the Holocaust even enter into the argument between Zionists and Palestinians about Israel? What on Earth are you disputing in my posts? No idea what you’re talking about. Where did I suggest the Palestinians should suffer, pay the price, etc.? You said something false – that the Holocaust had nothing to do with the formation of Israel. I pointed out your false statement. That’s all. You appear to agree now that the Holocaust very obviously was enormously important for the formation of Israel, and that was the only point of disagreement. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/399 "2018-01-12T19:48:13Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The Abbasid era ended in 1517, exactly when the Ottomans showed up. No that is entirely wrong. The Abbasides ended their effective Khalifa with the mongol invasion at the latest although after the 950s they are not really the rulers any more but there is the puppet Caliphs of the Seljuks etc. The later puppet dynasty in the Cairo was not a ruling dynasty, they were the puppets of the various Turkish etc. Mamlouks or the Ayyoubids etc. There is no idea in this period of the arab nationalism. It is an idea and a concept totally alien to the time period, an anachronism. > [@](#): > > AFAICT there have been attempts to create a Saudi Arabia for a long time. They had wars and stuff, didn’t they? Eh? What??? > [@](#): > > What do you mean by arab? I mean what is native to me. An arabic speaker who identifies as an Arab and not as a berber or as a Kurd or as a Turkmen or etc. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/400 "2018-01-12T19:59:42Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > The term “Arab” when used was largely a pejorative and Arabic speaking people, in general didn’t see themselves as “Arabs” any more than modern Americans see themselves as “English”. Yes until the modern arab nationalism, the word arab itself had a sense of the despicable and the uncivilized bedouine. In my dialect there remains the trace of this as one of the intensive forms of arab has the very insulting sense of “idiot backwoods cretin.” It is very insulting and if you say it to someone… It is funny as people do not make the conscious connection usually. The idea of an arab nation as a national concept like say the French is a pure creation of the 20th century. > [@Malthus](#): > > Ouch. No. > > [Abbasid Caliphate - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid_Caliphate) > > The “Abbasid Caliphate” existed in a shadowy form as exercising some sort of religious authority in Cairo until the Turks arrived, but their actual political power had evaporated centuries earlier. That is not what is meant by the “Abbasid Caliphate” any more than people usually say “the Roman Empire era lasted until the Ottomans showed up”, because the last emperors of Byzantium were terminated by the same Ottoman Turks. > > Your position is the equivalent of claiming that the Romans still ruled (say) France during the 14th century AD, because there was still an emperor in Byzantium. It’s an absurdity. yes. exactly. The majority of the governing regimes (except the Fatamides) in the region were in no way of an arab background in the modern ethnic sense and the idea of an arab national identity reacting to the Ottomans has no basis until after 1900 and only has real reaction to the Turkish ethnic nationalism coming into fore with the 20th century reforms of the Ottomans copying the Germans… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854.md?page=21)