SIXTEEN
The Contest for Palestine
Palestine, the "twice-promised land" as British wags used to call it, has
caused more ink to spill than any other Middle Eastern issue in modern
times—even more ink than blood. Many assume that the contest for
Palestine, which in 1948 became the Arab-Israeli conflict, is the main
cause of the troubles throughout the Middle East. Actually, Palestine or
Israel is only one of the trouble spots in the contemporary Middle East.
Civil wars, hijackings, assassinations, kidnappings, revolutions, invasions,
and refugee problems have occurred in many Middle Eastern countries.
Yet it is hard to name any problem in today's Middle East that has not
somehow been affected by the Arab-Israeli conflict. Certainly the atten¬
tion that the major powers, the United Nations, and legions of propagan¬
dists for both sides have paid to the conflict shows how large it looms in
the world today.
ORIGINSHow did the Arab-Israeli conflict begin? Does it go back to Abraham's two
sons, Isaac (the ancestor of the Jews) and Ishmael (the Arabs' progenitor)?
Did the wars between the Hebrews and the Canaanites, to whom Palestine
had belonged earlier, start it? Did Muhammad's quarrel with the Jews of
Medina intensify it? Is it a religious war between Judaism and Islam? The
Arabs say that it is not and that the Jews were always welcome to settle and
prosper in Muslim lands. The Zionists reply that the Jews under Muslim rule
were usually second-class citizens (as were all other non-Muslims). Both
sides agree that Christian anti-Semitism (a regrettable term for prejudice
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