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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE REGION KNOWN AS THE GAZA STRIP
“The Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip
borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about 25 miles long, and between
4 and 7.5 miles wide, with a total area of 139 square miles.”
(Ref. 1) The Gaza Strip derives its name from the city of
Gaza.
“Gaza was a settlement about three miles from the Mediterranean coast, marking the
southern border of ancient, Biblical Canaan. Its original inhabitants were a group of people known as the Avvites
(Deut. 2;23; Josh. 13:3). This distinct group of people is now extinct.
“It {the city of Gaza} was captured and conquered by the men of the tribe of Judah
(Judges 1:18) and was included in the allotment given to that tribe (Joshua. 15:47). It remained in the
possession of the Canaanites until the beginning of the 12th century BCE, when it became occupied by the
Philistines. It was part of the Philistine Pentapolis, the southern-most city in that league of five cities
(Joshua 13:3 1 Samuel 6:17; Jeremiah. 25.20). As part of the Philistine Pentapolis, Gaza played an
important role in the story of Samson (Judges 13-16).
“. . . the Philistines were a Mediterranean seafaring nation that is completely
extinct today. They are not one and the same people as the Arab nation and people calling themselves "Palestinians"
today. These Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael. The name "Palestine" and "Palestinians" evolved from the name
Philistia, which was given to the area by the Roman conquerors . . . The name {Palestinian} has been hijacked by
the Arabs . . .
“In Gaza, the famous saga of Samson and his miraculous feats of strength took
place (Judges 16). With the weakening of Egyptian support for the Philistines, the enemy finally submitted
to David, who slew the giant Goliath in battle (II Samuel 5:25).
“It was the only city in its area to oppose Alexander the Great during 332 BCE.
Later on, it was an outpost of the Ptolemies, who were the ruling power in Egypt during the Hellenistic period,
until its capture in 98 BCE by Assyria's Antiochus III, the Seuclid king in control of an empire.
“The city {Gaza} was . . . attacked and re-conquered by Jonathan the Hasmonean
during 145 BCE (1 Maccabeans 11:61-62).
“During the Hasmonean civil war, the city was taken by Alexander Janneaeus in 96
BCE. The Roman Pomey restored the city and Galbinus, also a Roman official, rebuilt the city
(circa 57 BCE).
“King Herod the Great held the city for a short time, but after his death, it came
under the authority of the Roman proconsul of Syria. It flourished as a Roman city and remained a center for the
Jewish community and the emerging Christian community throughout the Roman era (963 BCE through 324 CE), and
continued into the Byzantine period, 324 CE through 1453 CE.”
(Ref. 2)
“In a great battle fought near Gaza in 635 CE, the Arabs vanquished the Byzantines;
the city itself fell soon afterward . . . In the eighth century, R. Moses, one of the Masorites, lived there. The
Judean and Samarian communities of the Jewish people flourished under Arab rule.
“King Baldwin I of Jerusalem occupied the city . . . in Crusader occupation
times . . . From the time of Baldwin III (1152 CE), it was a Templar stronghold. In 1170, it fell to Saladin.
Under Mamluk occupation and rule, Gaza was capital of a district . . . embracing the whole coastal plain up to
Athlit. After the destruction of Gaza by the Crusaders, the Jewish community ceased to exist.
“In the eleventh century, a man known as Rabbi Ephraim of Gaza was head of the
community of Fostat (old Cairo).
“Nothing more was heard about Gaza until the 14th century. Meshullam of Volterra
found 60 Jewish householders there during 1481 CE. All the wine of Gaza was produced by the Jews (A.M. Luncz, in
Yerushalayim, 1918). Obadiah of Bertinoro records that when he was there in 1488, Gaza's rabbi was a
certain Moses of Prague who had come from Jerusalem (Zwei Briefe, ed. by A. Neubeuer, 1863).
“Gaza flourished under Ottoman rule. The Jewish community was once again flourishing
and prosperous during the 16th and 17th centuries.
“The Karaite Samuel ben David found a Rabbanite synagogue there in 1641
(Ginzei Yisrael be-St. Petersburg, ed. by J. Gurland, 1865). In the 16th century, there was a bet din and
a yeshiva in Gaza. Some of its rabbis wrote scholarly works. Farm-owners were obliged to observe the laws of
terumah (priestly tithe), ma'aserot (tithes) and the sabbatical year.
“At the end of the 16th century, the Najara family supplied some of Gaza's rabbis.
Israel Najara, son of the Damascus Rabbi Moses Najara, author of the Zemirot Yisrael, was Chief Rabbi of
Gaza and president of the bet din in the mid 17th century.
“In 1665, on the occasion of Shabbtai Zevi's visit to Gaza, the city became a
center of the messianic movement. One of his principle disciples was Nathan of Gaza.
“The city of Gaza was briefly militarily occupied once again, this time by Napoleon
in 1799.
“In the 19th century, the city of Gaza declined. The Jews that were concentrated
there were mostly barley merchants. They bartered with the Bedouins for barley, which they exported to the beer
breweries of Europe.
“Gaza was a Turkish stronghold during World War I. Two British attacks made on Gaza
during 1916-17 failed and it was finally taken during a flanking movement by Allenby. Under British Mandatory
occupation and rule, Gaza developed slowly. The last Jews living in Gaza left the town as result of the Arab
anti-Jewish disturbances and massacres that took place during 1929.”
(Ref. 2)
In 1967, on the seashore of Gaza's harbor, “A. Ovadiah excavated the area and
discovered a synagogue from the sixth century CE.
“Archaeological evidence supports the Biblical premise of a continuous Jewish
presence in Gaza, from the late Bronze Period until the Byzantine Period (circa 1500 BCE through 632 CE).
“Evidence of a considerable Jewish presence in Gaza during the Talmudic period
is provided also by a relief of a menorah, a shofar, a lulav and an etrog,
which appears on a pillar of the Great Mosque of Gaza, along with various Hebrew and Greek inscriptions.”
(Ref. 2)
MORE RECENT HISTORY OF THE GAZA STRIP
As of July 2009, the Gaza Strip “has a population of about 1.5 million people, . . .
1 million of whom were, as of March 2005, refugees who fled to the territory as part of the 1948 Palestinian
exodus following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, from those parts of Mandate Palestine that became Israel, and their
descendants. The population is predominantly Sunni Muslims and speaks a Western Egyptian dialect of Arabic.”
“Actual control of the area within the Gaza Strip borders is in the hands of Hamas,
{a terrorist} organization that won civil parliamentary Palestinian Authority elections in 2006 and took over de
facto government in the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority {PA} by way of its own political maneuvering and
armed militia in July 2007, while consolidating power by violently removing the Palestinian Authority's security
forces and civil servants from the Gaza Strip.” (Ref. 1)
“Over the millennia Jews have been expelled from Gaza by many different conquerors
but have always managed to return. The Crusaders killed many Gazan Jews, leaving few survivors. Ottoman Turks ruled
a vast empire from 1517 to 1917, including the geographical backwater known as Palestine. They also frequently
expelled the Jewish residents but then allowed them to return. This pattern has continued for centuries.
“Napoleon, marching through Gaza from Egypt in 1799 failed to restrain many of his
French soldiers who were joined by local Arabs in abusing the Jewish residents. As a result of Arab persecution,
the ancient Jewish presence in Gaza and the nearby villages died out in the first years of the 19th century only
to return yet again in the 1870s.
“In August 1929, when Arab rioters threatened to slaughter Gaza's Jews -- as they
had in Hebron -- the British army under the Palestine Mandate forced the community to evacuate their homes. . . .
{During} Israel's War of Independence in 1948, . . . Egypt overran the Gaza Strip and occupied it.”
(Ref. 1)
“In 1947 the United Nations proposed a Partition Plan in {which} . . . the Gaza area
was to become part of a new Arab state. The Arab states rejected the United Nations plan.
“In June 1967, . . . Israel liberated Gaza from Egyptian occupation, making it
possible once again for Jews to reside there. In 2001, during Palestinian Authority control under Yasser Arafat
and his Fatah organization, Kassam rocket attacks began to pound the restored Jewish communities in Gaza.
“After Arafat's death, rocket fire continued under his Fatah successor, Mahmoud
Abbas. But in 2005, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon forcefully evicted from their homes the nearly 10,000
Jewish villagers and farmers from Gaza as part of the Disengagement Plan.”
(Ref. 1)
Clearly, there has been a Jewish presence in Gaza, extending from Old Testament
biblical times through 2005. The Gaza Arabs connot make the same claim. Many, if not most, of the current residents
and their predecessors are Arabs who came to Gaza after Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. Most Arab residents of
Gaza are Johnnies-come-lately.
Following the 1948 War of Independence, “the Israel-Egypt Armistice Agreement of 24
February 1949 established the separation line between Egyptian and Israeli forces, and established what became the
present boundary between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Both sides declared that the boundary was not to be an
international border. The southern border with Egypt continued to be the international border which had been drawn
in 1906 between the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire.
“The All-Palestine Government continued to nominally exist under Egyptian control.
The Strip's population had been greatly augmented by an influx of Palestinian refugees who fled from Israel before
and during the fighting. Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip or Egypt were issued with All-Palestine passports;
Arab refugees were never offered Egyptian citizenship [Emphasis mine]. . . . Egypt never
annexed the Gaza Strip, but instead treated it as a controlled territory and administered it through a military
governor.” (Ref. 1)
Israel took control of the Gaza Strip away from Egypt during the 1967 War and
maintained authority there until 2005 when “IDF { Israeli Defense Forces} forces and Israeli settlements were
unilaterally removed in August 2005, after which the Fatah faction assumed governmental control of Gaza and its
population.
“In January 2006, the militant Islamic faction Hamas won the Palestinian elections,
gaining control of the Palestinian council. Because of Hamas’ status as a terror group, economic sanctions were
immediately imposed by Israel and other Western countries. After a failed attempt by Fatah leader and Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to form a unity government, bloody clashes between Hamas and Fatah erupted in
Gaza, resulting in the seizure of the area by Hamas in June 2007.
“Since Israel's withdrawal, Hamas and other Palestinian groups have used Gaza as a
launch site for thousands of mortar shells and rockets fired at southern Israeli towns and villages. In June 2006,
IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was seized by Palestinian gunmen who had tunneled under the Gaza border into Israel. Two
other soldiers were killed in the attack. Shalit has been held in Gaza since.
“In late December 2008, following the disintegration of its fragile cease-fire
agreement with Hamas and persistent rocket fire on its southern communities, Israel sent its troops into Gaza, in
a three-week offensive called Operation Cast Lead. The operation was aimed at stamping out the rocket fire, and
targeted Hamas personnel and military installations.”
(Ref. 3)
Strange, isn’t it – There never was an independent Arab nation in Gaza - when
offered the opportunity by the United Nations to have their own country, which included Gaza, in 1948, the Arabs
refused; when under the control of Egypt from 1948 to 1967, there was no talk of Gaza becoming part of an
independent Arab nation; under the control of Egypt from 1948 to 1967, Arabs living in Gaza were not offered
Egyptian citizenship. Only when Israel took control of Gaza after the 1967 war did the subject of Gaza becoming
part of an Arab nation come to the forefront. In reality, no one gave one iota of a consideration to the Arabs
living in Gaza – the only thought was how to antagonize, attack and then destroy Israel. The concept of Gaza being
part of an Arab nation in Palestine was never considered when the Arabs were offered the chance and even when they
(Egypt) had control of Gaza.
A SOLUTION TO THE GAZA PROBLEM
The Hamas controlled Gaza Strip on the southeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea
continues to be a constant threat to the State of Israel and an ever-present source of violence and terror in the
Mid-Wast. The citizens of Gaza live under the tyranny of Hamas, and, as a consequence of accepting the terrorist
nature of the Hamas regime, have brought upon themselves the inability to earn decent livings, and their consequent
dependency upon foreign handouts and charity. Arabs and their supporters heartlessly use the citizens of Gaza as
pawns in their ongoing war against Jews and Israel.
There is a simple solution to the problem presented by Hamas controlled
Gaza. The State of Israel needs to buy Gaza and re-incorporate it into Israel. The money
to buy Gaza can come from Israel, the Jewish national Fund, and Jews around the world. IF
there are any countries or people around the world that truly want to see peace in the mid-east, they can contribute
part of the funds to purchase Gaza and to relocate into the ample lands of their co-religionists the current
residents of Gaza who do not wish to live in the State of Israel.
The current residents of Gaza should have the choice of (a) leaving Gaza and
resettling among their Muslim brethren in a nearby Arab country or, if they wish, (b) remaining in Gaza, accepting
Israeli citizenship, and renouncing any intent to harm or destroy the state of Israel. In the latter case, they
would join over 1 million Arabs that now reside in Israel. In so doing, they might be asked to take a simple oath.
Such as, “I hereby declare that I desire to be a law-abiding citizen of the State of Israel, with all the rights
and privileges granted to all citizens of Israel.”
Prior to and throughout its more than 60-year existence, the State of Israel has
accepted and welcomed all co-religionists from all four corners of the globe. This includes: pre-World War II
escapees from Eastern European pogroms, post-World War II survivors of the Holocaust, refusniks from Communist
Russia, refugees driven out of their centuries-old homes in the Arab lands of the mid-east, Yemenite Jews,
Ethiopian Jews, and a variety of other Jewish immigrants from all over the world. It has gladly taken them in,
assimilated them, and made them part of the only thriving democracy in that part of the world.
On the other side of the coin, what have the Arab countries of the mid-east done for
their Palestinian brethren? Nothing, nada, gar nichts, bubkes, zero! What the Arab countries of the mid-east have
done is to turn their co-religionists into pawns in their ongoing war against the Jews and Israel. The Arab
countries of the mid-east care nothing for their Palestinian brethren. They prefer to keep them in refugee camps,
in squalor, and in misery, in order to create and maintain a festering wound that they use to garner sympathy for
these wretched people and to provide a focus for anti-Semites and their willing dupes throughout the world. These
Arab countries and their terrorist cohorts do not want the Gaza problem solved, the Palestinian refugee issue
settled, or peace in their region of the world. They want Israel destroyed, its Jewish population
eliminated, and any vestiges of a free democracy removed from their autocratic and theocratic midst. “The Arab
states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as open sore, as an affront to the United
Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don't give a damn whether the refugees live or
die.” (Ref. 4)
Can the "Arab World" absorb the Arab population of Gaza? “The Arab World refers to
Arabic-speaking countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from
the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast. It consists of 25
countries and territories with a combined population of 358 million people straddling North Africa and Western
Asia”. (Ref. 5)
These 25 Arab countries and territories occupy 8.6 million square miles.
(Ref. 5) There are 1.5 million Arab residents of Gaza. Should every resident of Gaza choose to leave Gaza rather than become an Israeli citizen (Highly unlikely – just ask the 1.2 million Arabs that are currently citizens of Israel if they would like to leave Israel and become citizens of a neighboring Arab country.), that means that there would be 0.17 Gaza refugees per square mile of Arab land. An addition of 1.5 million Arabs from Gaza to the existing 358 million Arabs in these 25 countries and territories amounts to only four-tenths of one percent. Without the Gaza Arabs, there are already 42 Arabs per square mile of Arab lands. The increase in population density in Arab lands resulting from the addition of 1.5 million Gaza Arabs would be totally miniscule.
From 1919 through 2006, Israel has taken in 3.3 million immigrants
(Ref. 6) into a country that encompasses only 7,500 square miles.
(Ref. 4) This amounts to 440 immigrants to Israel per square mile,
more than 2,500 times the immigrant density that Gaza refugees would create for the Arab countries.
Selling Gaza to Israel eliminates two major problems of the “two states, living
side-by-side in peace” Utopian concept of an independent Palestinian nation. An independent Palestinian nation
composed of the “Gaza Strip” and the “West Bank” means a country of two parts, separated by Israel, with no direct
land route between the two parts - hardly a recipe for success. It currently means one part, Gaza run by the
terrorist organization, Hamas, and the second part, the “West Bank”, administered by the “moderate” Fatah element
of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas and Fatah are basically at war. Eliminating Gaza from the equation (a) results
in a single unified entity, the “West Bank”, and (b) denies the terrorist organization Hamas of its base of
operations in Gaza.
Are there precedents for one country purchasing the land of another country and the
people living on that land changing citizenship from that of the original country to that of the new country? There
certainly is: the United States purchased the land west of Mississippi from France and the residents thereof
changed citizenship from France to the United States; the United States purchased California from Mexico and the
residents thereof changed citizenship from Mexico to the United States; the United States purchased Alaska from
Russia and the residents who were originally Russian citizens thereafter became American citizens. Six different
flags have flown over the state of Texas: Spain, France, Mexico, Texas, the Confederacy, and the United
States.
What a great opportunity for all the human rights activists, peaceniks, bleeding
heart liberals, and opponents of “Israeli apartheid.” They can show their humanity by contributing to the cost of
resettling the Gaza Arabs in the nearby hospitable countries of the Mid-East. They can help transport the Arabs of
Gaza to their new homes and they can contribute to the support of the Gaza Arabs in their new homes until they are
able to support themselves.
Will the world allow this solution to the Gaza problem to be implemented? Hardly
likely! The world powers, the anti-Semites, and the mindless bleeding hearts of the world will never accede to
such a plan. They would rather keep the people in poverty and misery so they can continue to blame Israel for the
problems of the people of Gaza. They would rather maintain Gaza as a base of terrorist operations against the State
of Israel.
I have another great idea. Let’s have all the humanitarians that are wringing their
hands over the plight of the poor downtrodden Arabs in Gaza bring them over to the United States and settle them
here. After all, it’s estimated that we already have between 10 and 20 million illegal immigrants here in the
U. S. (Ref. 7) What’s another 1.5 million? Think of the government
funded jobs that would be created – a whole new federal bureaucracy perhaps called the Gaza Refugee
Resettlement Agency, along with the people that would be hired to house, feed and clothe the Gaza refugees.
Now is the time for the these humanitarian activists to put up or shut up; it’s time for them to stop the talk
and walk the line.
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References:
- Gaza Strip, Wikepedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip,
Accessed 16 June 2010.
- GAZA'S HISTORY AND THE JEWS, Gary Fitleberg, Think-Israel;
http://www.think-israel.org/fitleberg.gazahistory.html, Accessed 16 June 2010.
- Gaza , HaAretz; http://www.haaretz.com/meta/Tag/Gaza, Accessed 16 June 2010.
- Arab-Israeli Conflict: Basic Facts, Israel Science and Technology Homepage;
http://www.science.co.il/arab-israeli-conflict.asp, Accessed 16 June 2010.
- Arab World, Wikepedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_World,
Accessed 16 June 2010.
- Aliyah, Wikepedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah, Accessed 16 June 2010.
- Number of illegal immigrants in U.S. may be closer to 20 million , Eliza Krigman,
OhMyGov!; http://search.aol.com/aol/search?q=Illegal+Immigrants+in+U.S.&s_it=wscreen-aolexperience-w&page=2&nt=SG2&oreq=be942f5fe0e64fe5ba0ef7ca1bb56224,
10 April 10, 2008 (Accessed 17 June 2010).
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