THE PROBLEM IN PALESTINE.

Perhaps, it is time that the Jews living in Palestine and the Palestinians to bury their differences and arrive at a solution. How to go about it is an extremely difficult proposition but the solution has to come from the people living Palestine themselves rather than any third country. Although Jews are settlers in Palestine, they have to be accepted by the Palestinians, and the Jews have to respect palestinian self governance. Intervention of 3rd countries in such conflicts is futile.  

But what was the cause of the problem? Although I knew about it in shreds I wanted to know more about it. I searched the net and found an interesting article on it. This is an abridged version of the article. I retained most of the wording from the article.  

The fight for a Jewish homeland is rooted in 19th Century movements promoting “Zionism”: the forced emigration of Central European Jews – notably from Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Germany – into Palestine, as well as North and South America.

The undisputed founding father of International Zionism was Viennese lawyer Theodor Herzl who convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1898. His seminal book, Ein Judenstaat (“A Jewish State”) published in 1896 sets out the rationale, method and plan for founding a sovereign Jewish State, discretely leaving the door open for founding not just one but two Jewish states.

Cosmopolitan Jews combined their leaders’ immense political, financial, media and diplomatic clout to ensure European Jews would, against all odds, get their homeland in Palestine. This however, resulted in ignoring the interests and lives of millions of Palestinians living there for many generations.

Historically, Christian Europe discriminated against the Jews. For centuries they were second-grade citizens and were systematically expelled from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Britain, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Belorussia, Poland, Ukraine and many other nations.

Scorned by both Catholics and Protestants, they were segregated inside ghettos from where they focused on retailing and, with time, became Europe’s foremost international bankers.

Resistance against them regularly flared, often into bloody pogroms. Zionist activists took advantage of this state of affairs to rally their flock into their movement. This centuries-long targeting of Jews is called “Anti-Semitism”, and can only be explained in two basic manners:

Though “Anti-Semitism” certainly has its religious overtones, its root cause in modern times is not so much religious as it is social. Contrary to Islam and Christianity which many times rose up in Holy War and Crusading to convert the heathen, Judaism never seeks to convert anybody by force.

Quite the contrary: Jews are such by birth; by blood; by genetics. Religious conversion is therefore not an option.

For centuries, Jews would part company with the hope-filled greeting “Next year in Jerusalem”. Gathering in Zion was a leitmotiv of their hope to one day achieving nationhood in the land of Moses, Abraham and David.

Theodor Herzl, Leon Pinsker, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben Gurion and other founding fathers fought to create Israel however at the turn of the 20th Century; the Holy Land was just not an option. When Zionists petitioned Ottoman Turkey’s Sultan who reigned over Palestine to give them their state he simply refused. But they continued lobbying, leveraging and promoting their ideas and ideals, whilst through academia and the press they nurtured increasingly liberal social conditions necessary for them to flourish.

By then, extremely powerful European bankers with deeply embedded contacts and into every government, directly and indirectly consolidated and promoted the Zionist ideal. They used long-term rather than short-term strategies; their names are symbols of the burgeoning international finance over-world: Rothschild, Warburg, Schiff, Lazard, Bleichroeder, Belmont, Hirsch, Montefiore, Goldschmidt, Oppenheimer, Goldman, Sachs, Erlanger, Speyer, Mendelssohn and many other powerful European bankers, brokers and traders who extended their power and influence throughout Europe and the Americas.

German billionaire Maurice Hirsch supported Herzl’s plans founding the Jewish Colonization Association that promoted emigration of Eastern European Jews to America, notably Argentina, a country ranking very high on Zionism’s priority list.

In World War I, which Germany, Austria and Ottoman Turkey lost in 1918 to France, Britain and the US, leaving Palestine as a British Mandate.

The year before, UK Baron Walter Rothschild secured from Britain’s Foreign Secretary Sir Arthur James Balfour a “Declaration” whereby Britain “would favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object” subject to nothing being “done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” This triggered a new wave of European Jewish emigration to Palestine.

The 30’s and 40’s, however, brought a new wave of persecution under the Third Reich and World War II, generating in its aftermath renewed support for a Jewish homeland. That was finally achieved in 1948, not so much as recognition of Zionists’ right to impose a Jewish State upon Palestine, but due to unrestricted Western support for the Zionist Plan. 

CASTE---ITS GENESIS---ITS (IR)RELEVANCE IN THE PRESENT DAY.

No one knows for sure how the caste system has evolved in India. But it can be estimated as to how it has originated.

Caste in India perhaps had its origins in the occupation people pursued. In ancient times mechanization was very low and it was required that the craft had to be learnt very carefully under a guru for acquisition of a particular skill. This is passed down generation after generation. As mobility was very restricted in the ancient times, people initially tended to take up that particular skill which had an expert in their neighborhood. Slowly that entire neighborhood acquired that skill and handed it down generation to generation.

After some time perhaps due to competition arising out of learning the same skill in another neighborhood marriages were preferably arranged in the same neighborhood so that knowledge of that particular skill did not leak out. Slowly with time, the process became more rigid and the neighborhood which practiced a particular skill got formulated into a caste. As they lived together and practiced the same skill and also intermarried, relations within that caste improved and they felt themselves a part of that whole and caste affiliation became stronger.

Similar communities have evolved in other neighborhoods as well. As these other neighborhoods already had an expertise in that particular trade, inter marrying between these neighborhoods appeared alright because it did not pass on the tricks of the trade to others who are new to the trade. Slowly all the neighborhoods practicing that trade evolved into one caste with rigid rules for marriage.

Of course, the same thing could have happened and caste should have evolved in many other countries too, but surprisingly there is no parallel to this in the world.

Sociologists are not able to understand why caste as it is practiced in India, has not evolved anywhere else in the world.

Perhaps at the time it evolved caste system did have relevance and despite having its setbacks, has helped the society to function in a smooth manner. But, in the present day when everyone is free to learn whatever they please, and choose whatever they please, it becomes an anachronism and also irrational.

Even today inter marriages between castes is taboo and we read about the many suicides committed by lovers due to their parents refusal to the marriage. Of course, there are a few cases of marriages between different castes but they are the exceptions.

Some people argue that people from the same caste would have similar habits and therefore it is correct to marry within the caste. But is that really true? At present it is the economic class that influences behavior of the people, and families from the same economic class tend to have a stronger chance of having similar habits rather than families from the same caste.

Why then do people hang on to a system that is outdated? Unfortunately, in our society tradition is never questioned even by the educated classes. When Raja Ram Mohan Roy set up a college for women at Calcutta, he was furiously attacked by the scholars at that time because they felt that girls should not get educated. We know now what a foolish concept that was, but at that point of time it was perfectly accepted by society unquestioningly.

Similarly, he also fought a bitter war against Sati, widow remarriage and also property inheritance rights to women. In this he is way ahead of his times. One would be horrified now to know that there were some13,000 recorded cases of sati in Bengal province alone in a period of some 10 years during Roy’s time.

It is the will of that great man that made him hang on to his beliefs despite all the persecution meted out to him. Can one man change the society? Well, Rama Mohan Roy’s life is an example although even he would have been helpless had the British not supported his actions. Such is the power of tradition.

It is high time now that the caste should be cast aside by our society. Youngsters should be allowed to marry of their own liking and caste should not be a barrier.

The biggest barrier to breaking caste is the concept of caste based reservation. This has ensured that people organize themselves on the basis of caste and exert pressure of the governments to get more and more concessions. This strengthens caste groups and the benefit of their caste is seen as greater than that of the society as a whole. The reservation system has now ensured that caste differences only deepen day by day as each caste tries to grab more and more. Such a scenario is never good for the country as a whole but which political party has the guts to bell this cat? But, of course which political party is bothered about the country?

What India needs now is a strong reformer like Rama Mohan Roy. One can only hope that such a person would come forward and lead our youngsters to a tomorrow, where the word caste gets confined to the history books. Perhaps this is wishful thinking and a sweet dream but what else can one do?