From http://web.archive.org/web/20071111224450/groups.msn.com/Mishpocha/mainarabarguments.msnw
The following is a collection of Arab arguments against a Jewish State of Israel existing in the Middle East. These arguments were gleaned from debates held between Jews and Palestinians at the arabia.com chatrooms from September 2000 - February 2001. Although that series of debates is now over, arab arguments are still being added to this page. The newer additions have been gleaned from the Arab press.
The following is a collection of Arab arguments against a Jewish State of Israel existing in the Middle East. These arguments were gleaned from debates held between Jews and Palestinians at the arabia.com chatrooms from September 2000 - February 2001. Although that series of debates is now over, arab arguments are still being added to this page. The newer additions have been gleaned from the Arab press.
Each accusation is separated by a divider. Within each divider, each accusation is also divided into 3 parts:
Part 1. - the accusation
Part2. - what the accusation is intended to achieve
Part3. - refutations to the accusation
1. Jews are descended from Khazars and are not the people of the Bible.
This accusation is intended to negate the land rights claim by Jews to Israel. If we are not the people of the Bible who lived there, then we cannot have a historical claim to the land.
Refutations -see Jews as Khazars?
2. Jews are European colonialists.
This accusation is also intended to negate the Jewish peoples land rights claim to Israel. It is an attempt to link the Jewish struggle to regain control of Israel to Imperialism. This accusation is used often by Left wing activists.
Refutations -see Continuous Jewish Presence in the "Holy Land"
3. Jews started all the conflict and were treated well by arabs before zionism.
This accusation is intended to make the Jewish people appear to be the aggressors and the arabs to be the poor defenceless victims.
Refutations -see Religious Persecution of Jews by Arabs
4. The holocaust never happened, it is a lie created to get world sympathy in order to steal Palestine from the Arabs.
This accusation is intended to brand Jews as a "horrid people who would pull the most terrible hoax on the world in order to steal land from poor innocent Arabs." It is intended to get the rest of the world on side with those Arabs who oppose Israel.
Refutations -see Holocaust Denial and the Arab World
5. The holocaust did happen and Jews have been so affected as to be angry violent people who are taking it out on the Palestinians.
This argument is intended to show the Israel as the aggressor in all Arab/ Israeli conflicts. It is an attempt to underplay or ignore the terrorist actions of the Arabs and make the IDF and Jews appear to be mentally unstable, violent people. Palestinians also add to this by saying that the Jewish State is doing to Palestinians what Hitler did to the Jews.
Refutations -See A Palestinian Holocaust
6. The Torah as we know it has been perverted by Jews and in the true Torah, G-d does not give the Jews Palestine or make Jews the chosen people.
This accusation is used mainly by arabs to elicit sympathy from other Muslims. It is intended to show that todays Jews are not "people of the book" as stated in the Koran due to their perversion of the Torah. This allows Muslims to see Jews as "Kafir" and therefore subject them to the punishments outlined in the Koran for such heretics.
7. Jews are racist and this is proven by the Talmud
This accusation is aimed at proving Israel is a racist country and tries to link it to nazism. It is an attempt to show that not only is a Jewish state a racist concept, but the laws of a Jewish state would also be racist because Judaism is racist. Arabs use this to try to convince the world that Israel is unnacceptable as a Country in todays world
Refutations -see The Talmud parts 1 - 4
some sites for refutations to these and many more points http://web.archive.org/web/20071111224450/http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/8815/ http://web.archive.org/web/20071111224450/http://www.igc.apc.org/ddickerson/protocols.html
8. There was never a Jewish Presence in Israel - And there was never a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem
This accusation is aimed at negating any Jewish historical claim to Israel.
Refutations -see The Islamic Claim to Jerusalem
9. Israel is a racist Country that practices appartheid
This accusation is aimed at attacking Israel for being a Jewish Country and having a "right of return" for all diasporah Jews.
10. The Israeli Defence Forces have used extreme force against innocent, unarmed arabs
This is an accusation to reduce world support for Israel, to turn diasporah jews against Israel, and to convince Israel to allow arabs to harrass and murder its' civilian population.
11. The Palestinians are the Ancient Canaanites and Philistines
This accusation is aimed at undermining the Jewish claims by awarding the Palestinians a more ancient land rights claim.
Refutations - see What is a Palestinian
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Jewish Attempts to Retake Israel
Many people have the impression that before 1948 CE, the last Jewish attempt to retake Israel was "The Second Revolt" of 132 - 135 CE. This however, was not the last time we Jews tried to regain control of our homeland. There was infact an attempt to take back Israel in almost every century since the Second Revolt, however, most of these attempts have been relegated to the area of "false messiahs" in the Jewish history books. False messiahs are somewhat of an embarrassment so it is hard to find a comprehensive list of all the attempts we made over the centuries since 135 CE. Bar Kochba himself was also branded a false messiah.
For the Jewish people, it was difficult to separate any attempt to take back control of the Holy Land from religion. As a highly moral religion, Jews believed that Israel must have been lost due to sin, and once redeemed, G-d would send his Messiah to lead us back to into Israel. All those who attempted to take back Israel were therefore seen as claiming to be the Messiah, whether they had claimed so or not. All those who failed were branded false messiahs because the messiah could not fail.
Attempts from the diasporah to retake Israel were bound to fail in most cases because Jews were a persecuted and scattered people. Jews have constantly lived in Israel since the time of Joshua, however, between the Second Revolt and 1948 CE, we were oppressed and taxed heavilly by powerful Occupying Nations so that uprisings also carried great difficulties. Jews living outside Israel were often barred from returning by which ever foreign nation was in control at the time. While Jews always had the desire to return and retake control of our homeland, we did not have the resources. Still, this never stopped us from trying.
The first attempt I found recorded after the Second Revolt was The Gallus Revolt in Israel of 351CE. The Roman records mentioned that this was not unique and that the Jews were a rebellious people. I can therefore only assume that the Bar Kochba revolt was not the end of internal uprisings against the Romans.
Outside of Israel, there have been far more recorded attempts. Although there is almost one per century, and sometimes a few for a particular century, I found many more that I could not list here for lack of the name of the leader and other information I felt necessary. The following are listed by the year and name of the leader only:
448CE - Moses of Crete
530 CE - Julian of Canaan
700 CE - Abu Issa of Persia
724 CE - Serenus of Spain - (possibly successful for a short while?)
832 CE - Moses "Risen from the Dead"
1095 CE - Moses Al Dari
1137 CE- David of Moravia
1137 CE - El David of the Euphrates
1147 CE - David Alroy "king of the Jews of Babylon"
1240 CE - Abraham of Abulfia "The prophet of Avilla"
1250 CE - Alroy of Azerbijan
1500 CE - Asher Lamlin
1523 CE - David Reubeni - "Prince of the Lost Tribes"
1530 CE - Solomon Molko
1666 CE - Shabtai Zevi
1759 CE - Jacob Frank
In 1880 CE, we saw the beginings of the Zionist movement which was ultimately successful in 1948 CE. For those who mistakenly believe that the Jews suddenly decided that they wanted Israel in 1880, I believe I have given evidence to the contrary. Jews never gave up trying to regain control Israel even though the effort itself took 1813 years and suffered many embarrasing failures along the way.
