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I just want to know, in your opinion, how I should think as a Christian Palestinian when other Christians tell me that Europeans who haven't been on the land since before 1947 have more right to the land than me. Especially since my maybe my ancestors learned Christianity probably from Jesus himself on the land. So, what are your opinions?
>> Well, I guess the question would be. So, first of all, it's important to put this in the proper context because it didn't just start in '47 with a bunch of Jews coming from Europe and then coming to Israel. There there was a lot of immigration to the Levant during that time period. But there'd always been a Jewish presence on that area for centuries going all the way back to the original Canaanite conquest. Not to mention the fact that the original people that actually had Gaza were actually Philistines who were probably Mycenaean in origin, which is actually Greek. So, the problem when whenever we talk about the Levant is that we can go back through the history of okay, it's Canaanite, it's Philistine, it's Israeli, it's or or Jewish, it's Egyptian, it's Hittite, it's Persian, it's Greek, it's you know, Sassinid, it's Arabic, it's A lot of people have been in control over that territory. When it was the Ottoman Empire, they're not Arab, right? They're it's Ottoman, they're not Palestinian, it's Ottoman. So, there's been a lot of people who's controlled this particular territory. So, the idea that should we have a Jewish state in that part of the world, I think it made sense to the extent that you're going to have a Jewish state. And if you look at the original If you look at the original lines in 1947, I that that the Jews agreed to, it looked very different than what they have today. But part of the reason why it looks different is because they they kept getting attacked and then they would expand more defensible borders.
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>> Exac- the idea, I guess, of a Jewish state being there is different than creating the Jewish state on a land that was already occupied by people. So, the British and French have done irreversible crimes to Africa and the Middle East and all over the world. And the British, when they were holding the land, they were holding a land already occupied by the people. By, let's just say, my family members were forcefully kicked out of their own homes. We have the key to our house in Jordan for our house in Palestine where Jews would not necessarily the Jews from Europe with British weapons walked in and kicked my family out of their own house to create a Jewish state on a land where people already existed. So,
>> No, I This really comes down to the question of do you think that the agreement in '47 should have ever taken place, right? Did you think that uh do you think the Jewish people should have taken because the areas that it was originally carved out for them was very, very narrow and it was more in line with Jewish populated areas of the Levant. And so, the idea to where you're going to draw lines, nobody's ever going to be happy with the actual drawing of the lines. Um and so, the I I I don't know how to answer the question other than to say that I I do believe that Israel has a right to exist as a nation. Um
>> On land that was already occupied or
>> Again, but a lot of the a lot of that land that was occupied was occupied by Jewish people that wanted to stay.
>> Well, most most of the people are more Arab Levantine than they are Jewish because the Arab Levantine, if you look past like DNA test that I have, Canaanite, Natufian, whatever you want before. The Israelite like the Jews, their their relatives didn't exist 12,000 years ago. But, they were relatively newer with six I agree, 6,000 years on the land gives you influence and you should exist and you should be allowed to exist under like they were existing under Palestinian rule, fine. Before 1947, there were Jews on the land. They were living their lives. They were treated just like any other individual.
>> I don't know that I would agree with that characterization.
>> Well, you can ask the Jews who used to live there. There How many stories from pre-1947 will you find a Jew saying, "Oh, no, they they were beating me because I'm Jewish. You didn't allow me to live here cuz I'm Jewish." I'm not a Muslim, but one of their values is objectively treating your neighbor like yourself. And I'm a Christian and we have the same value. And both of us were doing this really well when we were living in the land before the I That's That's the
>> That's the part that I don't know. Look, I obviously you're there. I don't know if I agree with that overall characterization of what relations were like with the Jewish people in that area. I also know that as you look at what has happened with the Jewish people and um countries we'll say with Islamic governments, um the Jewish populations have almost been wiped out in most of those places. So, I can I can understand a large Jewish population in their ancestral homeland wanting a state where they feel like they can control their government and defend themselves from what what was pretty obvious hostility. Because what while we can say all day long what what religious edicts or what religious doctrines command us to do, we also have to look at okay, what's what's been the history of that? And it seems to me like overall Jewish-Arab relations, Muslim relations have not been all that friendly. Um and and I don't think I'm going out on a limb by saying that. And so again, um I'm not trying to reduce I'm not trying to reduce the pain of individuals with respect to people who lived in an area that were forced to relocate. Um I do think that when we look at what happened in 1947, um I I again, I think it made sense for the British who controlled that territory at that point to say that we're going to have a a two-state solution, which is what they did. And this state would be controlled by uh the Jews and would be Israel, and this state would be controlled by the Palestinians. And then there was a conflict that resulted from that, and then you had another conflict in '48, and then you had another conflict in '67, you had another conflict in '73, and you had another conflict in '81. So, again, I I think that a lot of those conflicts and the nature of what happened, especially after World War II with the Mufti of Jerusalem siding with Hitler, I I don't think it's not confusing to me why the Jews would want their own state, why the British why the British gave it um British just started talking about this
>> beforehand.
>> It just depends on what do you think of colonialism because the British were controlling a land that wasn't theirs. So,
>> Well, well, okay, but before that the Ottomans were controlling a land that wasn't theirs. And before that, you you had the the Byzantines that were controlling a land that wasn't theirs. And before that, you had a So, this this is the problem. Whenever
>> ancestors were living on that land for every single one of these occupations, and the land in most cases had a name more similar to Palestine. Just like
>> Okay, but the but do you do you Palestine do know how it got the name Palestine?
>> How?
>> It was Emperor Hadrian. So, Emperor Hadrian from the Romans came in, he put down the last Jewish revolt. Um, he decimated the temple. He literally tried to create uh like commit a genocide against the the Jewish people because they were the Romans were tired of them revolting. And then he changed the name of Judea, which had been its its traditional name since the the Israelites uh since it came into the two kingdoms between Israel and Judah. He called the province of Judea and he changed it into Palestine as a Latin version of Philistia, which again was was not was not Arab, was not Levant. They were Mycenaean genetically, so they were Greek. So, again this is part of the problem is that we're talking about we're talking about one of the most ancient pieces of land in the world that has been fought over for thousands of years and then everybody's making different claims on who has the best right to be there. And and I and I would say I understand the argument. Um, I understand the argument from like Arab Palestinians that say we have we feel we have a right to be there. I don't disagree. I also understand Jews that say we also feel we have a right to be here. I also understand why the Jewish people would want their own government because they don't feel like they would be treated fairly under an Islamic government.
>> Uh Thank you.
>> Thank you.