Di posting kali ini saya ingin berkongsi sedikit nota perbentangan saya bersama 5pages1day dalam siri Beyond Pages yang membahaskan buku The Case of Israel: A Study of political Zionism yang ditulis oleh Roger Garaudy. Rakaman perbentangan boleh ditonton di Youtube.
Introduction
Alhamdulillah. All praise to Allah the Most Merciful, peace be upon Muhammad, the last messenger. Today we will be continuing our discussion of the writing of the French philosopher, Roger Garaudy on his study on Political Zionism. We will conduct this session in English as we had an international audience today, I’m not a native English speaker, so I apologized in advance if I had a bad pronunciation, if there is anything that you are not clear, please feel free to ask and submit your question.
Today we will be answering questions that has been sent from listener from our previous session. But before we do that, I would like to recap some of the essential points made by Garaudy on political Zionism for the benefit of our new listener. In his book Garaudy dispelled the myth that Zionism has a historical argument for their colonization of Palestine. They have been no point in history before 1948 that a polity was created in Palestine based on Jewish supremacy. He also dispelled the idea of Biblical argument for the State of Israel, the interpretation of Bible to justify colonialism, occupation and apartheid are selective and base on tribal exegesis. Zionism is not equal to Judaism, but it is a racist 19 century nationalism akin to Germany in the 1930. Garaudy also draw a parallel line between Zionism and anti-Semitism, there are twin that shared the same goal to eject Jew living in diaspora from their countries.
Finally, in latter part of the book, Garaudy explored the policy of the State of Israel, its expansionist policy with multiple invasions of other countries, it also produced racist policy which is the same policy that we saw in apartheid South Africa. Today the apartheid nature of Israel has been affirmed not just by international group like Human Right Watch, but also Israeli right group like B’Tselem.
1. Why can't we do the same for Uyghur?
This question is actually a whataboutism fallacy. Whenever we raised the issue of Palestine, we are bombarded with unrelated question. What about Uyghur? What about Syria? What about Yemen? What about anything? This is the way how to deflect the issue by raising a lot of other issues making us feel that we actually don’t have the power to make the world a better place. The questions want to overwhelm us, it is not constructive and serve to deflect the issue.
It’s like we enter a class in biology, and we asked the lecturer, what about chemistry? Physics? Isn’t it an important subject too, why don’t you talk about them? Why lecture us only on biology? Of course, talk about biology if the subject at hand is biology! That does not mean another subject is not important.
By putting forward the cause of Palestine does not mean we closed our eyes on other issues. For example, we in Malaysia have been actively helping our brother and sister all over the world. We help our Bosnian brothers during Balkan War. We shelter Rohingyas when their villages was burned by the Buddhist, we send aid to Syria and Yemen. We help Uyghur transiting to third countries for safe passages, although many were not reported in mainstream media. We will continue to help all of the oppressed.
2. What say you when people said the colonisation of Palestine happened because of Sultan Abdul Hamid fault? They said if Sultan Abdul Hamid did not chase Herzl out or degrade him, Palestine is safe.
Baik, kita akui memang berlaku penghijrahan Yahudi pada zaman Ottoman. Penghijrahan ini satu perkara yang biasa pada zaman dahulu, zaman dahulu tiada sistem imigresen moden seperti hari ini.
“Population changes attributed to Jewish migration had been taking place during the Ottoman’s time. The year 1882 marked the beginning of migrations on larger scale than usual (Mandel 1976: 1) known as the First Aliyah or settlements and was to continue until 1903. Various Ottoman government policies were recorded, as response to this sudden influx of immigrants into the country. While Abdulhamid did see the advantage that the Jews may offer, especially in terms of economy, greater concerns in regard to large-scale Jewish settlement prevailed over his decision in accepting Theodor Herzl’s offer to settle the large debt that the Ottoman’s government had garnered. Mandel believed that there were two principal views that shaped the Ottoman Empire’s attitude towards Jewish migration, that firstly, “…the Ottoman Government feared the possibility of nurturing another national problem in the Empire (the Arab nationalism movement was already in motion). Second, it did not want to increase the number of foreign subjects, particularly Europeans and nationals of Great Powers [Great Britian, France, Russia, Austro-Hungary, Germany and Italy], in its domains” (Mandel 1976: 1). However, to determine the actual number of people who migrated into Palestine from the Ottoman records does not seem possible, as no there is no known record, or any other Jewish records, which had rendered studies on this matter to the use of synthetic analysis.”
Sultan Abdul Hamid II memerintah empayar Turki dari tahun 1876-1909. Baik, ingat tahun terakhir pemerintahan Sultan Abdul Hamid, iaitu 1909. Baik, selepas kejatuhan Ottoman, Palestin duduk di bawah British Mandate, dan ketika ini kita boleh lihat data bancian penduduk (census) ada dua census yang dilakukan, pertama tahun 1922 kemudian 1931.
“...in mid-1924, the total population of Palestine for Muslim Arabs, Jews, Christian Arabs and other minorities were 709,938. The Muslims were still at 75% of the population, as were the Christians at 1.16%, while the Jews had increased slightly by 0.37% compared to the previous year. It was the following two years, 1925 and 1926 that saw a sudden change in the in the composition of Palestine demography with the Jews increasing dramatically, where another 26,780 to its numbers, which accounted for 22% of the Jewish total population and made it 16.09% of the total population in Palestine. It was the highest Jewish rise recorded in this period. This was due to the fourth wave of Jewish immigrants between 1924/1925-1931 which became the addition to the Jewish population in Palestine. This rise of Jewish numbers can be attributed to events that played out outside of Palestine.”
Rujukan: Nor, Mohd Roslan Mohd, Ummu Zainab al-Abidah Zainal Abidin, and Ezad Azraai Jamsari. "The Demographic History of Palestine during the British Administration (1917-1948) based on the Official Records of Palestine Demography." Islāmiyyāt 37.2 (2015).
Jadi dari data census British ini kita dapat fahami, walaupun ada migrasi Yahudi pada zaman Abdulhamid, jumlahnya tidak signifikan. Penghijrahan yang signifikan berlaku pada tahun 1925-1926 itu pun hanya menambah populasi Yahudi kepada hanya 16%. Inilah yang dikatakan oleh Garaudy bahawa propaganda Zionis untuk menarik Yahudi ke Palestine tidak berjaya. Pertambahan ini terus meningkat, semasa pemerintahan Nazi Jerman (1941-1945) menyaksikan pertambahan lagi penduduk Yahudi kepada 30%. Propaganda Yahudi masih tak berkesan untuk menarik Yahudi ke Palestin. Akhirnya pada 1948, Zionis melakukan pembersihan etnik, dimana hampir sejuta rakyat Palestin dibunuh, dihalau, barulah mereka dapat menjadi majoriti.
Jadi untuk kita menyalahkan Abdulhamid adalah tidak tepat menurut statistik. Sebab itu tidak ada serious scholar yang menyalahkan Abdulhamid atas penjajahan Palestin, baik scholar Arab atau Yahudi. Yang ada mungkin netizen melayu di Facebook.
3. Macam mana orang Palestin boleh tolong Israel awal-awal dulu? Sedangkan Sultan Abdul Hamid pun tolak tak nak bagi tanah.
Saya rasa soalan ini tidak tepat. Kerana Israel tak wujud sebelum 1948. Jadi tak ada yang dikatakan “orang Palestin boleh tolong Israel awal-awal dulu”. Yang ada adalah orang Islam menolong orang Yahudi. Ini memang telah lama dibuat oleh orang Islam zaman berzaman. Kita tak membenci Yahudi kerana dia dilahirkan sebagai Yahudi. Kita faham bahawa semua manusia bersaudara seperti yang ditulis Garaudy pada permulaan bukunya.
Salahudin selepas membebaskan Jerusalem dari tentera salib membenarkan Yahudi pulang. Malah doktor peribadi Salahudin, Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon) adalah seorang Yahudi. Malah ketika jatuhnya kerajaan Islam di Sepanyol, apabila Kerajaan Kristian Katolik menghalau Yahudi keluar dari Sepanyol, Sultan Bayezid II menerima masuk orang Yahudi yang dihalau, perkara ini boleh dibaca bukan sahaja dalam rekod Islam, malah rekod Yahudi juga mengakui penerimaan Ottoman ini. Sehingga hari ini Tuki mempunyai 18,000 penduduk Yahudi yang kebanyakannya tinggal di Istanbul.
Jadi membantu orang kesusahan ini memang akhlak Islam, dalam sejarah kita orang Islam membantu semua tak kira bangsa termasuk Yahudi. Apa yang kita lawan adalah kezaliman seperti penjajahan yang dilakukan Zionis, kita tak benci bangsa, tapi benci kezaliman.
4. Nak minta Syed Ahmad Fathi fokus sikit dekat inisiatif atau solusi untuk isu ini.
Many people frame these issues as a complex issue. Beyond the reach, cannot be solved, the Arab and Jew are destined to fight each other until the end of time. Dr. Norman Finkelstein when asked about this question suggested a simple solution. Follow the law. Currently what happen is that Israel is allowed to breach the law without any consequences. Israel flouted UN resolution without any repercussion, no sanction whatsoever. Abide by the international law and UN resolution, such as withdrawing settlement from 1967 borders, allowing refugees to returned as per UN resolution, end blockade in Gaza, give Palestinian the full right as citizen, no racist and apartheid law. So, the solution is to return to the application of international law, and if Israel did not want to follow the law, they should be sanction just like any other countries.
5. Apa pandangan Syed Ahmad Fathi mengenai 2 state resolution? Sejauh mana rasional dan menjaga hak hak Palestin? Atau ini merupakan propaganda Israel yang tersirat.
The two states solution has been discussed for a long time. It has been put into the table as a subject for peace plan. Now, after 73 years of peace plan discussion, we see no peace and no plan. Israel has never interested in giving Palestine any of the land they colonized and occupied. Throughout these talks, Israel has constantly transferred its population as an illegal settlement in the occupied territory. This settlement is designed to prevent the emergence of a viable Palestinian states. It cut through the geography leaving Palestinian separated in Bantustan similar to South African apartheid. Many leading scholars believed that two states solution is dead. Because Israel is not commited to it politically or in reality (in action). It is just a distraction for a peace talk, whilst at the back Israel continue to steal more land.
My personal prediction, it will be one state under one law. The name of the state maybe Israel initially, but over time history will took it course, the refugees allowed to returned, the Arab population will be restored as majority and eventually it will change back into Palestine. But of course, nobody can predict what happen in the future. Nobody can see what is there in the future under the veil of history. But if history thought us anything, it is that colonialism is not sustainable, you can discriminate people up to only a certain time before it crumbles. British rule India for 100 years before it crumbles, apartheid in South Africa only survive for 42 years. Eventually Israeli colonialism and apartheid will crumble.
Tiada ulasan:
Catat Ulasan