Some Thinking on History

What starts me thinking on all these different things? Writing to people all over the world. They make me reach beyond what I know currently to learn more. They give me a glimpse into the rest of world, places I have not been to, differences of culture, how they see, hear and feel about different things. It may be about what kind of morning hot drink they or I have, or world events that shake the foundation of what we know as a species.

Sometimes, it starts with: I’ll be the first to tell you I am not a fan of Google. I have really never been a fan of theirs, as I hate that I am the product, which means every keystroke, every bit of data, everything about myself is theirs to sell. Not to mention they want to rule the world.

This is a lengthy piece. I’m a fairly verbose and prolific writer in letters, on Facebook, and definitely here; I have a lot of thoughts popping into my mind at any given time, and I prefer to get them out rather than to keep them rolling around like marbles. Hence why “losing my marbles” is so apropos to this. Hang in there, dear reader, I am actually going somewhere with this post.

They are hardly the only ones. Disney, Marvel, Apple, Amazon, every form of social media (I’m on Facebook, so I know), they all want to rule the world. I suppose every demonica president, dictator, or chancellor wants the same thing, although I am at a loss as to why. That seems like an unreasonable amount of work and for what gain, really? You know the quote “Uneasy is the head that wears the crown”? I know that is very much the case…and not a worthwhile endeavor. There is always someone (or a whole passel of “someones” if the leader has multiple children. You still won’t live forever, and yeah, since you are the sitting king or Kal or president, there will be people who may decide to forcibly remove that crown.

That does not sound like a job I want.

Hence, my distrust of Google. My cousin loves Google and has signed my father up for every conceivable Google nightmare. I really hate that, but Ray listens to him, not me. And I have tried to keep him free of Google.

I know that all computer technology corporations do this but while Apple does use our information, they most notably do not share it. That makes a huge difference, you know, to those of us who are not fond of every keystroke being weaponised against us. I suppose it is inevitable that this happens. I just hope that Google isn’t cozying up to our psychotic president or with any government who is totally crazy: China, North Korea or Russia. Or whoever else is out there. I did not note Iran for the simple fact that first the British, then we destroyed our relationship with them.

Palestine is a unique case. After World War I, a bunch of countries came to the table in an effort to “fix” different world issues and of course broke it further in the process. Yes, I do get why taking what must have seemed like desolate desert and making it a nation for the Israelites might have sounded good, but it seems that Palestine drew the short straw. In many ways, so did the Israelites…they have had and still do defend themselves constantly from not only the Palestines, but other nations as well.

This particular tale begins in the 10th millennium when humans trooped out of the African continent. They came via what is referred to as the Levantine Corridor, which is modern-day a relatively narrow strip between the Mediterranean Sea and the deserts of the northwest to the southeast that connect Africa to Eurasia. This is a land route of animals, and was the route humans took (over a long expanse of time, I think people have an idea that this is a short journey, like hopping over to the grocery store to grab a salad) to get to the land where the three major religions were born. At any rate, it is the western portion of the Fertile Crescent, including Jerusalem.

I agree with Suzy Eddie Izzard: picking the same exact location for three religions to call their holy land is a massive bit of insanity. If you are Jewish, this is where they lived (they lived all over the place, really, but this is the crucible of their history). If you are Christian or Catholic, this is where Jesus lived. If you are Muslim, Mohammed was the man. If you are Wiccan, you are in the wrong place…we were all over, too, but we finally meandered out of the desert, up through Gaul, into the British Isles and Ireland, and settled there. We all lived by the four distinct seasons, but I am losing the thread… Anyway, that was a recipe for disaster, and moving the Israelites there and handling them what is mostly desert just put the icing on that recipe cake.

“In the Iron Age, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were established, entities that were central to the origins of the Jewish and Samaritans peoples as well as the Abraham faith traditions. This has given rise to Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity [what, no “ism”? That would be awkward….], Islam, Druzism, Baha’ism, and many other religions. Throughout the course of human history, the land of Israel has seen many conflicts and come under the sway or control of various polities and, as a result, it has historically hosted a wide variety of ethnic groups.

In the following centuries, the Assyrians, Babylonian, Persian and Macedonian empires conquered the region. The Ptolemes and the Seleucides vied for control over the region during the Hellenistic period. However, with the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasties, the local Jewish population maintained independence for a century before being incorporated into the Roman Republic. As a result of the Jewish-Roman wars in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, many Jews were killed, displaced or sold into slavery. Following the advent of Christianity, which was adopted by the Greco-Roman world under the influence of the Roman Empire, the region's demographics shifted towards newfound Christians, who replaced Jews as the majority of the population by the 4th century. However, shortly after Islam was consolidated across the Arabian Peninsula under Muhammad in the 7th century, Byzantine Christian rule over the Land of Israel was superseded in the Muslim conquest of the Levant by the Rashidun Caliphate, to later be ruled by the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates, before being conquered by the Seljuks in the 1070s. Throughout the 12th and much of the 13th century, the Land of Israel became the centre for intermittent religious wars between European Christian and Muslim armies as part of the Crusades, with the Kingdom of Jerusalem being almost entirely overrun by Saladin’s Ayyubids late in the 12th century, although the Crusaders managed to first expand from their remaining outposts, and then hang on to their constantly decreasing territories for another century. In the 13th century, the Land of Israel became subject to Mongol conquest, though this was stopped by the Mamluk Sultanate, under whose rule it remained until the 16th century. The Mamluks were eventually defeated by the Ottoman Empire, and the region became an Ottoman province until the early 20th century.”

It needs to be said that for many centuries, all three religions lived in peace within that region; the Silk Roads were mainly there and radiating out, although depending on what the “silk” was, that changed. But business came first, and thus people did their best to keep commerce moving along smoothly. People love to make it sound as though no one got on well for as long as these religions — along with many, many others — could not see eye to eye for centuries, but really, this began in the 1940s.

“ The late 19th century saw the rise of a Jewish nationalist movement in Europe known as Zionism, as part of which Aliyah (Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel from the diaspora [I love this word; Jim does, too]) increased. During World War I, the Sinai and Palestine campaigns of the Allies led to the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. Britain was granted control of the region by League of Nations Mandate, in what became known as Mandatory Palestine. The British government had publicly committed itself to the creation of a Jewish homeland in the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Palestinian Arabs opposed this design, asserting their rights over the former Ottoman territories and seeking to prevent Jewish immigration. As a result, Arab-Jewish tensions grew in the succeeding decades of British administration. In late 1947, the United Nations voted for the partition of Mandate Palestine and the creation of a Jewish and an Arab state on its territory; the Jews accepted the plan, while the Arabs rejected it. A civil war ensued, won by the Jews.

In May 1948, the Israeli Declaration of Independence sparked the 1948 War in which Israel repelled the invading armies of the neighbouring states. It resulted in the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight and subsequently led to waves of Jewish emigration from other parts of the Middle East. Today, approximately 43 percent of the global Jewish population resides in Israel. In 1979, the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty was signed, based on the Camp David Accords. In 1993, Israel signed the Oslo 1 Accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was followed by the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority. In 1994, the Israel-Jordan peace treaty was signed. Despite efforts to finalize the peace agreements, the conflict continues to play a major role in Israeli and international political, social, and economic life.”

This is all from Wikipedia, under “History of Israel”, as I could not have done this as fast (even though it was not, it was quicker than trying to yank this all from memory and not getting lost in the weeds over and again) as this. It took about an hour, as I didn’t want to keep a multitude of links in all that history.

Anyway, it is clear that all these major nations played their role in the mess that is Israel’s relationship with — mainly — the Palestines, and ours with the Middle East. It needn’t have become such a powderkeg, but the British barged in to the Caliphate’s lands in the late 1800s, treated the caliphates very poorly after making shyster deals and openly referring to them as animals (why? Because they did not wear pants, or did not stick out their pinkies while drinking their tea, or had a posh accent, and a million other totally inconsequential items…who can follow that? Honestly, different cultures are what make some of us writers and want to reach out to people from far away lands).

I have been thinking, while expounding on this, that Britain, aside from going after the oil, which is the Silk Road of today, leaving a swath of destruction in its wake, also may have done all this in an effort to hold on to their empire. Their “property” in terms of lands was so huge that the nomenclature of Great Britain became “the Sun never sets on the British Empire. That was geographically true. Now, however, day by day, it is shrinking. Other countries want to determine their own future, not have the crown stepping in. Advertising for what a great buncha guys and gals they were (even though everyone was quite uptight and repressed in the Victorian Era)!

It was an epic failure. And it did not improve when we stepped in, again for the black gold of our time, but also to make us look less stupid and more like a hero. Another truly legendary implosion that has led us to this…not even an impasse, but an utter shambles.

I hope things will look up. Somehow I feel it won’t begin in my lifetime, but still I hope.