Let my people go, Moses told the Pharaoh. The Jewish people then spent 40 years wandering in the desert wilderness until they reached the Canaan land in which they lived and flourished.

During the Roman occupation the Jewish people revolted against the Roman tyranny at Caesarea in Palestine. Caesarea was built by Herod to honour Caesar.

The Jewish revolt was led by Bar Kochba and Rabbi Akiva. After many years of fighting the Romans won and all Jews were killed or they themselves killed each other rather than surrender to the Romans.

Rabbi Akiva was captured by the Romans and skinned alive as an example for all to see and take heed. From this day forth the Jewish people were gathered and disbursed around the world.

During the following centuries the Jewish people suffered discrimination and became the scapegoats of every Monarchy which was short of finances or just needed someone to blame.

Thousands upon thousands of Jews were tortured and killed by the Roman Inquisition.

Lastly the Jewish people were subjected to yearly Pogroms, mostly in the eastern regions of Ukraine and Russia, where they were attacked, killed, raped and all of their worldly goods stolen. Whoever saw the film “Fiddler on the Roof” will have seen what took place during these Pogroms.

It was as late as the 1880s that some of these Jews took courage and left Ukraine to travel to their dream of the Holy Land where they were welcomed and taken in by Palestinian Arabs. In Palestine there were then only about 5 thousand Jews who still lived as they had done hundreds of years previously. Other Jews started following after receiving news of this and little by little many Jewish communities started arriving in Palestine.

The Jewish elders bought swamp land from the Arabs and also from the Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamed, as Palestine was then under the Ottoman Empire. They cleaned and drained these swamps and turned them into fertile lands. These settlers then started building their Kibbutzes which were based on the original idea of Marks and Engels of how communism should be. In these Kibbutzes the existing Jewish settlers started coping with the increasing influx of many more Jewish people.

The Arab community then started getting worried by the arrival of so many more Jewish people, and how they had managed to turn their waste land into such flourishing fields and gardens.

In 1917 Lord Balfour make the following declaration that gave hope to the Jewish people to have their own State, the declaration was this “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and we will use our best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this objectve.” It was also declared that the Palestinian Jews would have a third of Palestine and that the remaining two thirds would be for the Palestinian Arabs.

It was much later in November 1947 that Israel obtained the two thirds majority of the United Nations for it to became a State. The Arab nations then revolted against this declaration and vowed retaliation.

On the 14th of May 1948, when Ben Gurian officially declared the State of Israel, the Arabs attacked and were subsequently roundly defeated by the Jews. During this war the Palestinian Arabs caught in the middle of the ongoing conflict were terrified and on hearing that the Jewish solders were approaching many of them fled from their homes and property for safety.

The irony is that the Jewish State kept this land and made it their own, leaving the Palestinians without any hope of ever regaining their land or property.

From then on the Jewish Nation changed from the people that were oppressed and instead became the oppressors. Not only was this land taken, it also continued to be extended by the 1967 war and lately by the settlers’ expansions onto Arab lands, sacred religious places in Jerusalem have also been taken over.

To add insult to injury a dividing wall was also built with the excuse that it is there to protect Israel from Palestinian attacks. Most probably this wall was built as a marker for future divisive separation. Further land extensions are still continuing to be carried out by settlers with the Israeli States protection and blessings.

Palestinian finances, electricity, water, sea borders, building permits, taxes and permission to cross and work on their own land are all in the hands of the Israelis. Even the American financial assistance to the Palestinians is managed and given to the Jewish State to distribute as it feels fit to the Palestinians.

The Jewish State has managed to enslave the Palestinian people in all aspects of life for so many years now with no hope of a final and just solution. Instead if the Palestinians revolt and fight for their rights they are now called “Terrorists.”

The world talks of rights. Many sessions are held at the United Nations. All of these are for nothing as they are always blocked by the United States of America, whom many like me believe do not dictate their own and world affairs, but rather that America is being led by the strong Jewish communities that finance their Presidential and Gubernatorial Elections.

If there is any justice in this world, then the Palestinian people should and must have their land and rights returned, so that they can live side by side peacefully with the Israeli people who are also equally entitled to have their own state.

Finally, Hamas must be thoroughly condemned for targeting civilians, there can never be any justification whatsoever for the killing of innocent civilians on either side in any conflict, it is totally inhuman and must be vehemently condemned by one and all.

Lino DeBono

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