Arab-Jewish Conflict

On A2 on Nov. 20, you ran a photo of the latest violence between Israelis and Palestinians and captioned it “Ageless Conflict,” implying that Arabs and Jews have a long history of strife. That’s a gross distortion of fact.

Most history books covering the Arab peoples from Iraq to Morocco during the past 13 centuries tell it like it was: Until the early 1900s, Jewish minorities in Arab societies did not experience persecution. Many rose to positions of prominence and power in various Arab regimes. Persecuting Jews was a tradition of the Christians of Europe. The Koran admonishes Muslims to “respect the people of the Book,” the Book being the Bible. In Islamic countries, Jews and Christians were protected minorities.

Conflict between Arabs and Jews is a direct result of the way in which Zionism was implemented. Arab hostility toward Jews began to develop only at the turn of this century after the Zionists--almost exclusively Europeans--made known their intention to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. At that time, about 97% of Palestine’s inhabitants were Muslim or Christian Arabs and not sympathetic to a foreign takeover.

This tragic intra-Semitic conflict is less than 100 years old, not “ageless.” But understanding it begins only with recognizing that it was not the Palestinian people who went to where the Jewish people were living and took their land from them. It was the other way around.

DONALD BUSTANY, President

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination

Committee, Los Angeles