COMMENTARY: October 7th in Historical Perspective

Above, Israeli soldiers in Gaza, Oct. 2023.

By --[Name withheld at request of the author, a retired educator.]

The goal of the historian is to put events into historical perspective. October 7th is just such an event, Unfortunately, the reaction to October7th demonstrates the ignorance of both Muslims and American college students.

First, there was never anything such as a Palestinian state. Indeed, anyone who lived in the area was, technically, a Palestinian. The area was controlled by Jews as far back as Kings David and Solomon, 1600 years before Islam even existed as religion.

After the Jews, the area was controlled by the non-Muslim Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, the Byzantine Empire, then the Ottoman Turks, non-Arabs who conquered the area and created the Ottoman Empire, which lasted until 1918. The Turks were Muslims but not from Palestine.

As the long article on “Palestine” in Wikipedia shows, although the name Palestine had long existed as part of other states, it was only in 1913 that it became known as a distinct area. After World War I, and to punish the Ottoman Empire for joining Germany in WWI, Palestine became a British protectorate.

Second, and this is never mentioned by Muslims, is that while 800,000 Muslims either were pushed out, left on their own, or followed the Mufti of Jerusalem’s suggestion to leave and return after Israel was destroyed, an equal or greater number of Jews were forced out or left on their own from other Middle Eastern Islamic countries.

The long article in Wikipedia on “The Jewish Exit from the Muslim World,” begins: “In the20th century, approximately 900,000 Jews migrated, fled, or were expelled from Africa and Asia. Primarily a consequence of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the mass movement mainly transpired from 1948 to the early 1970s, with one final exodus of Iranian Jews occurring shortly after the Islamic Revolution in 1979–1980. An estimated 650000 (72%) of these Jews resettled in Israel.”

Those Jewish refugees who came to Israel were gladly accepted by their co-religionists, but those who left Israel have been kept in “refugee camps”--which, over time became full-blown cities--by their co-religionists for over 80 years so that Muslim states could use these refugees as a foil to destroy Israel.

Third, there is the issue of the Al-Aksa Mosque, which Muslims also never mention. It is true that the Al-Aksa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam. But it is also the single holiest site for Jews. Why? Because it was built on the site of the Second [Jewish] Temple, which shows that Islam is itself based on Judaism and Christianity, contains many similar aspects---such as seeing Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus as prophets--but sees itself as the continuation and fulfillment of Judaism and Christianity.

Furthermore, Al-Aksa Mosque is in East Jerusalem . Under Muslim control until the 1967 war, Jews were prohibited from visiting the Wailing Wall, the only remaining part of the Second Temple and the holiest spot in Judaism. Since Israel gained control of East Jerusalem, which Muslims want as their capital of a Muslim Palestine, both Jews and Muslims were and are permitted to visit.

Hamas arose in 1987. Both its original manifesto and their second one thirty years later call for the extermination of Israel, or, in today’s terms, “from the river to the sea.”

The attack of October 7th shows what the fate of the Jews will be if Israel is destroyed. Israel can win twenty wars and still exist; if it loses one war it might no longer exist. Israel will do what it needs to survive. That is the lesson of the Holocaust and of October 7th.

Ignorance is not bliss.