"Palestinians are victims of 'The Jewish Problem'" says PA, claiming that Jews deserved European persecution
Excerpt of an op-ed by Fathi Al-Bis
Headline: “The Jewish problem”
“The Jews arrived in Palestine as invaders, and their story is known. In the stories of history, it is known that they were exiled by [King] Nebuchadnezzar, and they returned thanks to [King] Cyrus the Persian. What the Romans did to them is known, and afterwards they fled (sic., were exiled) from Palestine to all ends of the earth. It is known that they were persecuted, murdered, and tortured by the followers of Jesus, because they were accused of killing him.
I do not intend to write the history of the Jews, but rather to emphasize that the Palestinians are not connected to ‘the Jewish problem’ – rather they are victims of its winding paths.
Today the Palestinians are being murdered, tortured, expelled, and discriminated against by the Zionist movement – which appointed itself the representative of the Jews and their savior – as if the Zionists are reenacting against the Palestinian people the methods of oppression from which they suffered, without learning the lesson from what happened to them in Europe.
There were periods when their status rose, and there were other periodswhen the concern of the [European] societies was getting rid of them and expelling them with various accusations, foremost among them that they [the Jews] saw the other in the places they lived as non-Jews who need to serve the Jews. These societies made accusations against them such as poisoning wells in order to kill Christians, slaughtering Christians, and using their blood to prepare matzah for Jewish religious holidays…
In addition to the accusations that the Europeans made against the Jews, the Jews also worked against the church when it banned usury and they engaged in this.
It is said that they accumulated massive wealth from Christians poor and rich alike, and the Jewish problem grew and became a hatred pursuing them in the ghettos where they forced themselves or were forced to live.
Since literature reflects the life of societies and their opinions, we will mention the play ‘Merchant of Venice’ by Shakespeare, which was written in the 16th century, and in which Shakespeare explained the general view of the Jews: hard-hearted, merciless, hated, and ostracized usurers, and this was through the events of the play and the main character, the greedy usurer Shylock (an evil Jewish moneylender in a Shakespearean play who demands that a debtor repay him with a pound of his own flesh –Ed.).
It is known that this hatred was the reason that King Edward I of England issued an order to expel the Jews from his land on Aug. 31 (sic., July 18), 1290, and Spain followed his lead approximately 300 (sic., 200) years later…
This persecution led to the appearance of the Zionist movement, whose goal was to establish a state for the Jews as a solution for the Jewish problem. For this reason, the First Zionist Congress was held in Basel in 1879 (sic., 1897) led by [Zionist leader] Theodor Herzl. At this congress and afterwards the plans of immigration to Palestine were formulated, and what happened next is known: the Sykes-Picot Agreement (see note below -Ed.), the issuing of the Balfour Declaration (see note below -Ed.), and the massacres that the Nazis committed against the Jews.
The book ‘The Secret Connection between Nazism and Zionism’ by [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas explains in detail how Nazism facilitated the immigration of the Jews to Palestine in order to get rid of them, which leads to the conclusion that the European states agreed on establishing the Jewish state in Palestine in order to solve the Jewish problem and establish a state that would serve their interests militarily, economically, and politically…
Therefore, the establishment of the State of Israel was not done out of love for the Jews, but rather came as a solution for eastern and western Europe to get rid [of the Jews]. What then is our guilt, we the Palestinians, that we must pay the price?
Today Israel has become strong and capable thanks to the unlimited support that it receives from the US and Europe, but 73 years since the establishment of the Zionist entity – the Zionist project has failed.
The Palestinians’ resolve, their struggle, and their sacrifices are causing the states that encouraged the immigration of the Jews to our land to fear that due to this failure, they will return to the same societies that for a long time wanted to get rid of them. Their political, military, and economic goals can currently be achieved through direct relations with the states of the region, and therefore calls have begun to be heard to reexamine [relations with Israel] and to advance finding a peaceful solution to the conflict, in which Israel will remain strong, and the Palestinians will pay the price of solving the Jewish problem, of which they never were one of its causes but rather [one of] its victims.”
Shylock – refers to a character in William Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice. Shylock is an antisemitic depiction of a cunning Jewish moneylender who demands that a debtor repay him with a pound of his own flesh. Later, Shylock is charged with attempted murder of a Christian and – instead of receiving the death penalty – is ordered to surrender his wealth and forced to convert to Christianity.
“Shylock” has since become an antisemitic term to describe Jews pejoratively as those who lend money at excessive rates.
Sykes-Picot Agreement – A secret agreement between Britain and France negotiated by French diplomat François Georges-Picot and Briton Sir Mark Sykes and concluded in May 1916. The agreement had Russia’s approval and specified Britain’s and France’s proposed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East if the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War I. The plan was revealed in 1917 in the Russian press, and subsequently in the British press, angering the Arabs as it contradicted promises of independence made to them - on the condition they helped fight against and bring down the Ottoman Empire. The plan caused lasting distrust on the part of the Arabs in relation to Western countries.
The Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917 was a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Baron Rothschild stating that "His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." In 1922, the League of Nations adopted this and made the British Mandate "responsible for putting into effect the declaration," which led to the UN vote in favor of partitioning Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state in 1947. In response, Britain ended its mandate on May 15, 1948, and the Palestinian Jews, who accepted the Partition Plan, declared the independent State of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan and together with 7 Arab states attacked Israel, in what is now known as Israel's War of Independence.