230 · Rachel Maissy-Noy
more than others, on religious aspects in the course of Jewish history.
Historians of the nationalist and leftist streams, on the other hand, tend to
concentrate on the economic activities of the Jews and their influence on
world diplomacy. These researchers deal mostly with the historical and
political causes of the conflict and base their claims on secular research
disciplines such as anthropology, archaeology, Bible criticism, sociology,
demography, and international law. But above all they show great inter-
est in the Zionist movement, its aspirations and arguments, and insist on
presenting it as the main cause for the Arab-Israeli conflict.
However, the common aim of all of them is to shatter the Zionist nar-
rative and build on its ruins, using the very same elements for a coun-
ternarrative presented to the world for historical reevaluation. In fact, in
their introduction to their research, most of the researchers promise to
present to the readers the real history of the Jews, devoid of any fabri-
cation and forgery. Their historical narrative emphasizes five main the-
ses: First, there was no Jewish problem in the Diaspora, especially not in
the Islamic countries. On the contrary, the Jews in the Diaspora lived an
honorable life and reached a high economic and social standard in an-
cient, medieval, and modern times. Moreover, safeguarded by the Islamic
world and under its influence, the Jews managed to create monumental
works in philosophy, poetry, and grammar. Second, if there was a Jewish
problem, it emanated from the negative behavior of the Jews toward their
environment and not from the harshness of Muslim rulers, as claimed
by some Zionist historians. According to the third thesis, the Jews do
not constitute a nation, since Judaism is exclusively a religion and not a
nation, given that prior to the emergence of the Zionist Movement in the
nineteenth century, the Jews, scattered all over the world, showed none of
the common characteristics of a nation such as origin, language, history,
and common national aspirations. The fourth thesis is based on conclu-
sions from the sciences of biblical criticism and archaeology, which argue
that the Bible, on which the Jews base their bond to Palestine, cannot be
used as a reliable historical source to describe the past. The fifth thesis is
the conclusion from the previous four ones. It refutes the ideological basis
of the Zionist Movement and presents it as a camouflage for a colonialist
movement driven by economic interests. The following sections expand
on two of these theses.