Several emails have been circulating with similar claims – that the Arabs have no right to this territory, that there is no such thing as Palestinians, that Jerusalem is not as sacred to Muslims as to Jews, etc. One such letter came from a man named Farah, and the other from the notably right-wing yeshiva Aish Hatorah.
I’d like to briefly address these points:
First, it’s true that Palestine did not exist as a separate entity before 1948. However, neither did Israel between 70 AD and 1948. Both, however, exist today and we must contend with the need to reconcile the existence of both.
Second, about Jerusalem: While Jerusalem may not have been sacred to Muslims centuries ago, it is clearly sacred to them today. The parallel is also true for Jews: Jerusalem was sacred to Jews only as a religious symbol, but not as a national-political entity until recent years. Jerusalem changed political ownership very frequently throughout the past 2,000 years (in fact, it holds the world record among cities in this regard), but Jews never insisted on Jewish ‘political sovereignty’ over it. (Had this been important to Jews, perhaps we would have streamed to Jerusalem over the centuries, but we did not.)
Indeed, Jerusalem was never part of the Zionist dream, and quite marginalized by all the Zionist leaders. Under Ben-Gurion, the Zionist movement agreed to the UN partition plan of 1947, which would have internationalized Jerusalem for 10 years, after which a referendum among its residents would determine the sovereignty of this city. The importance of Jerusalem as a political entity was somewhat revived after 1948, but not fully exalted until fewer than 30 years ago, with the rise of the Gush Emunim (settlers) movement in the 1970s.
In short, history is an excellent teacher about what mistakes not to repeat, but not that helpful in resolving the issues of historical rights to this part of the world. More important, in my opinion, is the need to deal with current realities. And if we do that, I think a clear-eyed conclusion has to be that both nations have a passionate stake in this area, and that the fate of both are intertwined. The more fruitful course of action seems to me to find a way to reconcile these claims, rather than seeking to delegitimize one or the other.