Whose Land Is It? Israelis or Palestinians?

Whose land is it? Israelis claim that their ancestors have lived there for at least two thousand years, while Palestinians assert that since the seventh century AD, the first religious population in this land has been Muslims. The bloody conflict that has continued for nearly seventy years over this very question, will determining the borders of this land finally lead to peace? Monashe Amir, an Iranian-Israeli journalist residing in Jerusalem, and Mansour Farhang, a political science professor at Bennington College in the United States, discuss these questions in this week's taboo. Perhaps whether peace is fundamentally possible in the region we are discussing will be our final discussion. Before that, we want to examine this question with historical and cultural arguments, which certainly relate to politics: whose land is it? Is it the Israelis who provide evidence and say that our ancestors have been in this land for two thousand years, or is it the Palestinians who have been the inhabitants of this land after the Jewish-Roman wars? What response can be given to this long-standing international dispute with catastrophic consequences? We hear Mr. Farhang's response. Mansour Farhang: It depends on whether you look at these issues from a historical perspective or from a divine and religious perspective. From a religious perspective, there is no debate. It is a belief that an individual can have. This belief has no relation to logic and reasoning but can be respected. Regarding Israel, this land belongs to all the people who have lived there. Jews, Muslims, and Christians have lived there. The idea that someone comes and says [based on] my religious book, this land is mine, therefore others have no rights, has no relation to logic and international law, and from my historical perspective, this land belongs to all humanity: Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Therefore, if they look at it historically and within the framework of peace and possibilities of coexistence, there was at least hope in the past that they could compromise. Mr. Amir! Mr. Farhang's final opinion is that this land can belong to all; Jews, Muslims, and Christians. But how much has this opinion - which can be a beautiful opinion - been shown to be possible in these years and in practice? And if we are discussing land, the land must have a legal claim according to international law. All of this can create a crisis or not. If we want to know more specifically that apart from the human and beautiful aspect that can be said, the land belongs to everyone, is determining this right fundamentally possible? Monashe Amir: Yes, it is very beautiful what Mr. Farhang says that this land belongs to everyone. The whole world belongs to everyone, but as you said, certainly every land must have sovereignty and laws. If we look at it historically, and this is something I hope is not a matter of dispute, Jews have come to this land from Ur in Chaldea and Iraq thousands of years ago according to what is mentioned in the Torah as the cultural and historical book of the Jews and settled here. The cultural, religious, and national existence of Jews in the land of Israel has matured. Separate Jerusalem and Israel from Judaism, nothing remains for Judaism. All Jews from Australia to Los Angeles pray several times a day towards Jerusalem and wish to return to this land and rebuild and free their ancestral soil, and if you take away this nationalistic and religious attachment from Jews, certainly nothing remains of Judaism. When we ask who should govern this land, although it belongs to everyone, in my view, part of it should be governed by Jews and part by Palestinians because Palestinians have become a nation over the past decades and they also have the right to have an independent government and a land that is administered by them. I referred to historical documents, most of which are mentioned in the Torah and many of them have also been confirmed by historians. Mr. Farhang! Do you have any comments to add about referring to the Torah as a text in which historical documents can find meaning? Farhang: Absolutely. See, all the borders that exist in the world have been created through wars and by using violence, and in all these borders, the people and governments that have come to power have created metaphysical and divine myths to justify themselves. Therefore, if we believe that there is a God in the heavens and this God has given a decree that this decree must be acceptable to all, it has nothing to do with history, even this Torah that we are talking about was written centuries after the story of Christ and has constantly changed. These are beliefs and myths that they have created, and in them, there is morality and humanity, and it is also respectable, but the reality is that the people who have lived in this land can be the citizens of that country, now they cannot coexist like many countries. They create borders that this is Palestine and this is Israel. Today, the reason Israel can have complete dominance is that it has military superiority and is a very successful country in technology and economy compared to Arab countries. The myths of God, prophet, Moses, Torah, and Quran are myths that people have created to justify their behavior. Let me return to Mr. Amir. If we want to summarize Mr. Farhang's view, he says that borders have always been created through violence and religious books are not the criterion. The issue is power and military capability, and I want to ask you that for the possibility of coexistence that both of you referred to, we must first be able to answer the question of which of these two groups has had sovereignty over the disputed land more historically or which has more rights to sovereignty in this land? Amir: I refer to the Torah not as a heavenly book but as a historical book. See, it is a historical fact that the city of Jerusalem was designated as the capital of the Jewish nation by David the Prophet three thousand years ago. This has nothing to do with the Torah. It is historical documents. David the Prophet ordered that the Jewish place of worship, namely the Temple, the house of God, which is in the eastern part of Jerusalem, and is mistakenly referred to as the Temple, while the Temple is a hill in Jerusalem, was built by his son Solomon. The historical remains of these exist. This is not a myth. This is a reality that Jews lived in their land, then the Babylonian Empire took them captive, Cyrus the Great freed them, and they returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the house of God with the money of the Iranian nation. Then the Roman Empire took control of the land of the Jews and took the Jews captive. The name of the land of Israel was changed to Palestine, and the Jews were scattered around the world. For two thousand years they were refugees in other countries. They always prayed towards Jerusalem. They always believed and wished to return to their ancestral land. In the mid-nineteenth century, the nationalist movement in Europe matured, and at that time the Jews also came and said instead of sitting and praying every day that O great God, return us to our land, we will act like European nations to return to our land and establish our nationalism. This was how Jews gradually returned to this land. The United Nations issued a resolution in 1947 that this land should be divided into Arab and Israeli countries. The Arabs tore up the resolution. Israel was established, and the establishment of an Arab country was eliminated until we reached war, and the world must find this solution. Some of you may ask, is it fundamentally possible and logical for all nations and peoples to want to return to their borders thousands of years ago? Amir: I answer your question; that is, the only nation in the world that has been a refugee for two thousand years, oppressed, killed, and had its property looted, was the Jews who were persecuted everywhere. The founders of Jewish nationalism declared that if a Jew lives in his own country, this nation will be safe from the oppression of others and can regain its national and nationalist respect and dignity, and we saw that the state of Israel was re-established with what scientific advancement and power and welfare it has created for its people and with what democracy it has established in this troubled region that they come and try an Israeli soldier and condemn him to a year and a half in prison because he shot a wounded Palestinian terrorist. The same Palestinian terrorist who had just moments before harmed this soldier's friend and was going to kill him with a knife. Let’s see what Mr. Farhang has to say… Farhang: Mr. Amir is exactly preaching the same sermons that we hear in Friday prayers in Iran. It has no relation to reality. The reality is that more than 90% of the 2.7 million people living in the occupied territories were born after 1967 and were either children a few months or one or two years old at that time. They have seen nothing in their lives except a kind of servitude under Israeli power. The place that in 1948 the UN gave to the Palestinians, where today more than 600,000 Jews live. They have built roads there that Palestinians do not have the right to use. Today nearly 10,000 Palestinians are in Israeli prisons, the vast majority of whom have not even been charged with a crime. Let’s pay attention to the reports of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. I have been a member of the advisory board of Human Rights Watch for 25 years. An American who wanted to go to cooperate with human rights groups in Israel was not given a visa. Of course, if the Torah is historical; it has been said in history that Mr. Moses walked on the sea. Is this history or myth? There are myths in this Torah that I have read and taught from beginning to end. Myths that anyone who says these are history must live in another world; just as there are in Islam and Christianity. All the statements made about the oppression and the way Jews have been treated are absolutely correct. That Jews were finally able to have their own country is absolutely correct and respected, but since Israel gained power, it has treated other groups in the same way that others treated Jews. The statement that a soldier has been taken, in the past year alone, more than 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis. I have been in those areas myself. The lives of people in the occupied territories are semi-slavery. What Israel is doing is creating an apartheid state. Therefore, we should not use the oppression that was inflicted on Jews in the past as a justification to inflict the same oppression on others. The best and most interesting sources for understanding what is really happening in Israel are human rights activists in Israel themselves. Mr. Farhang raised several points that we should ask Mr. Amir to respond to. I want to summarize and ask you this question: Mr. Amir, you said that at one point Jews said we will no longer pray, but we will act to return to our land. You spoke of democracy in Israel and the recognition of Palestinian rights. You heard Mr. Farhang's statements as well. Do you accept this situation of semi-slavery or apartheid that Mr. Farhang speaks of?