Nebi Musa Massacre - The Postulate of Illegitimacy, Then and Now

...Considering their penchant for distorting history, Israel’s detractors are doubtless tempted to describe 1920’s predators as oppressed Palestinian peasants protesting against usurper Jews. It must, therefore, be a whopping downer to discover that none of this homicidal fury was unleashed on behalf of Palestine. The Arabs loathed the very name introduced to this country by its new British overlords.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
04 April '14..

Something strikingly dramatic happened in this country exactly on this day 94 years ago. Cries of Itbach el-Yahud(slaughter the Jews) filled the air. It was the first coordinated mass-murder offensive launched by infamous Jerusalem Mufti Haj-Amin el-Husseini (who would in time become an avid Nazi collaborator, Hitler’s personal guest in Berlin during WWII and a wanted war-criminal).

Ever since, this land shook fitfully as rounds of massacres and wars followed each other in breathless succession. The past mustn’t be consigned to irrelevance. Unbroken historical continuities contextualize current events. Nothing springs forth from a vacuum. What now transpires began back then.

The pivotal murder-drive of 1920 and its aftermath are vital for understanding why John Kerry’s peace pageant is a flop and why Israel so profoundly displeases him, his boss Barack Obama and their pet-Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas. It established the prototype whereby Jews are punished for Arab crimes against Jews. It highlights the pattern of appeasing Arab wrath and of Jews paying – as if Jewish existence is in and of itself a casus belli.

The bias maddeningly came into play already in 1920. It’s the bias that has today burgeoned into the escalating extortion and shameless expectation that Israel release convicted murderers as a matter of course and injure its own interests to keep its enemies sweet. It’s as if Israel has no valid interests, no rights. This is the postulate of illegitimacy.

Western antipathy to Jewish self-preservation was already gallingly evident in 1920, as was indulgent acquiescence to Arab aggression. It’s scary to realize how little has actually changed.

Those deadly landmark rampages were kick started on April 4, 1920, exploiting Muslim celebrations to rally thousands of raiders at Nebi Musa in the Judean Desert. Serially inflamed by Husseini’s vitriolic harangues, they poured into Jerusalem, descended upon the Old City’s Jewish Quarter and began butchering, raping, pillaging and burning – all in the name of their God.

The premeditated atrocity lasted four days. Even passing reflections on its overlooked anniversary (it’s so uncool to recall crimes against Jews), can contribute considerably to our present-day perspectives.

This unprovoked killing-spree was launched before any of the excuses for Arab bloodlust – now so conveniently and commonly cited – had existed. There was no Jewish state to fulminate against and no Israeli occupation with which to justify any outrage against Jews in the Jewish homeland.

There was no hint of what the Palestinians market so effectively as their nakba – catastrophe. There wasn’t a single Arab refugee. There was no war, no displacement, no reason to rage.

The 1920 victims were largely members of the old-time, traditional, pre-Zionist Jewish community that had long before then constituted Jerusalem’s outright majority. Yet this ancient community was deemed fair game. The subtext was that Jews have no rights – not even indigenous non-Zionists.

Considering their penchant for distorting history, Israel’s detractors are doubtless tempted to describe 1920’s predators as oppressed Palestinian peasants protesting against usurper Jews. It must, therefore, be a whopping downer to discover that none of this homicidal fury was unleashed on behalf of Palestine. The Arabs loathed the very name introduced to this country by its new British overlords.

Ironically, it was the Jews who became known throughout the first half of the 20th century as Palestinians and it was the Arabs who scornfully rejected the moniker.

Massacres of Jews by Muslims before 1948

Bataween
Point of No Return
23 January '11

http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2011/01/massacre-of-jews-by-muslims-before-1948.html  


"Jews lived happily together with Muslims in harmony before Israel was established."

How many times have you heard this said?

We are indebted to Torbjorn Karfunkel, who has blown the myth of peaceful coexistence sky-high with his pre-1948 'massacre map' of Jews by Muslims (click on the map to enlarge). The map goes back to the 7th century, when Mohammed's followers massacred Jewish tribes in Arabia. It reminds us that Jews were murdered in Spain in 1066, in spite of the 'Andalusian Golden Age'. The cluster of explosive dots over Morocco recalls that relationships between Jews and Muslims during the 19th century were not always plain sailing.

To this 'massacre map' one might add the blood libels which spread like wildfire across the Ottoman empire, often resulting not in massacres, but in individuals arrested, tortured and unfairly accused.

As the great Tunisian-Jewish writer Albert Memmi has written: "coexistence with the Arabs was not just uncomfortable, it was marked by threats periodically carried out."

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