Anti-Semitism?
Bah! Humbug!
Do you know, dear reader, that there are two kinds of Jews? They are the Sephardim, the western European Jews, and the Ashkenazim, the eastern European, Yiddish-speaking Jews. None of them, however, is ethnically Semitic; none of them sprang from the seed of Father Abraham, their belief to the contrary notwithstanding. The charge of “anti-Semitism” is, and always has been, baseless in this regard.
For an explanation, let us turn back the pages of history to the 8th Century CE. There lived in that part of Russia west of the Caspian Sea a people known as the Khazars. They were pagan and pastoralist, which made them natural targets for the “missionaries” of the major religions – Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The Khazars had no use for any of them, but they realized that they had to make a choice in order to forestall being “converted” by force. They chose the least objectionable of the three – Judaism – and converted en masse. No one bothered them thereafter.
Fast forward to the 12th Century CE. Out of Mongolia came the self-proclaimed “Master of the Earth,” Genghis Khan. He and his eldest son spread across the vast expanse of central and eastern Asia, conquering and subjugating all peoples before them. The Ural Mountains did not stop the “Golden Horde”; they passed through and spilled into Russia. The Khazars fled into central and western Europe and found sanctuary in scattered communities throughout the continent.
Sanctuary turned out to be elusive, however. The Khazars kept to themselves rather than assimilate into the general populations. Thus, they were viewed with suspicion, resented for their economic activities, and reviled for their non-Christian beliefs. For centuries, they were persecuted and/or murdered. Read Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” and Shylock’s lament.
Fast forward to the late 19th Century. The elders of the Jewish people developed the philosophy of Zionism, designed to provide their congregations some hope for a better future. The rallying cry “Next Year in Jerusalem” became a popular mantra. Zionism postulated that, because Palestine had once been the home of the ancient Israelites, modern Jews were therefore entitled to live there. Thus, they began the Great Migration. The Palestinians did not begrudge them at first, because they were “people of the Book” (the Old Testament). Little did they know the Zionist game plan.
Skip to the early 20th Century CE. At the end of World War I and the break-up of the Ottoman Empire in western Asia, the newly-formed League of Nations issued mandates to several of its members to rule specific territories of the former empire until such time as those territories were ready for self-rule. Great Britain was assigned to Palestine. Its mandate began 24 July 1922.
The Palestinians did not like the British any more than they did the Ottoman caliphs. They began a campaign of guerrilla warfare to drive out their “rulers.” Meanwhile, the Jews clamored for a “homeland” of their own. In September 1929, the League called upon the British to establish a Jewish national home west of the Jordan River. The Palestinians vehemently opposed that idea, and a civil war ensued.
Skip to the mid-20th Century CE. At the close of World War II, the newly-formed United Nations took up the question of a Jewish homeland and 29 November 1947, it adopted a resolution to partition Palestine into two parts in order to create a new state of Israel. It was a fait accompli engineered by the western powers, including the United States; the Palestinians had no say in the matter. Great Britain terminated its mandate 15 May 1948; the State of Israel had been proclaimed the one day earlier. The Palestinians opened up a new phase of their civil war.
Having lost their original homeland, the Khazars compensated by taking someone else’s homeland. Experiencing feelings of guilt for not doing anything to prevent the Holocaust, the western powers (including the United States) colluded to commit a wholly illegal and immoral act. The Palestinians, the real Semites, have been persecuted and/or murdered for the past 75 years.
Just a thought.