by Hal Lindsey
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD Almighty: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”133
The Bible records that not all of the Jews were taken to Babylon. A few were left in Judea to maintain the land, and some were able to flee to Egypt or Arabia. In 1949, after the birth of the state of Israel, Israelis rescued the Jews of Yemen from the wrath of the Muslims. In an amazing surprise airlift that became known as “the wings of eagles,” all of Yemenite Jews were taken to Israel. These Jews trace their origins in Arabia back twenty-five hundred years, which was the time of the Babylonian invasion.
ROMAN DISPERSION
The greatest flood of Jewish refugees came as a result of the initial Roman destruction of Jerusalem and Judea in A.D. 70 and in the period of some 150 years afterwards. During this time, the Romans fought off different Jewish guerilla-style insurgencies that tried to take Jerusalem back. The Jewish resistance was finally totally crushed. Some poor survivors stayed on in Israel. Others fled.
Guillaume is certain that “in the first and second centuries A.D., Arabia offered a near asylum” to the Jews who were victimized by the “utterly ruthless” Romans.
“Yathrib” (Medina) Established by Jews?
Historian Joan Peters134 quotes a vital insight by Bernard Lewis:
The Arabian land considered by many to be “purely Arab,” in the very land that would spawn Islam many centuries later, numbers of Jewish and Christian settlements were established. Both Christians and Jews helped develop Aramaic and Hellenistic culture. The chief southern Arabian Christian centre was in Najran, where a relatively advanced political life was developed. Jews and Judaized Arabs were everywhere, especially in Yathrib later named Medina. They were mainly agriculturists and artisans.135
An amazing fact is revealed here and confirmed by other historical sources. The second holiest city in the Islamic world may have been first established as a community by Jews! Whatever the case, Jews certainly played a large role in developing Yathrib. How often do we hear or read about this in history? The story of widespread Jewish settlement in pre-Islamic Arabia is certainly one of the world’s best-kept secrets.
The First Palestinian Refugees
“Thus,” writes Joan Peters, “evolved the flight of the first ‘Palestinian refugees’—the Judeans, or Jews.” I believe it is extremely important to understand how the early Jewish settlements in Arabia got there. These Jewish refugees are seldom discussed, yet understanding what happened to them is critical to understanding today’s Middle East crisis.
You may ask, why is this important to know? Because the pattern of action that developed toward the Jews in Arabia established the Islamic tradition that has been followed wherever Islam has spread!
Before Mohammad’s time, the comparative wealth of Yathrib (Medina), thanks to the hard-working, industrious Jewish refuges, attracted many pagan Arabs. They came for the jobs, the markets, and the commercial opportunities.136 In subsequent chapters, we will see this pattern first established in Yathrib repeated in nineteenth- and twentieth-century “Palestine.”
It is important to note that Judaism was very popular in parts of Arabia just before the birth of Mohammad. Guillaume writes,
At the dawn of Islam the Jews dominated the economic life of the Hijaz (the sacred eastern section of Arabia that contains Mecca and Medina). They held all of the best land… . At Medina they must have formed at least half of the population. There was also a Jewish settlement to the north of the Gulf of Aqaba… . What is important is to note that the Jews of the Hijaz made many proselytes (or converts) among the Arab tribesmen.137
Guillaume suggests that the prosperity of the Jews was due to their superior farming abilities and technology. So the first “Palestinian refugees”—the Jews—quickly became large landowners and controllers of Arabian finance and trade. This success no doubt led to the Jews becoming something of a stumbling block to their envious Arab neighbors—especially in Medina, or Yathrib; as it was then called.138
Enter Mohammad
It was into this historical context that Mohammad launched his ministry. As noted in the last chapter, Mohammad’s zealous crusade against polytheism made him increasingly unpopular in his hometown of Mecca. When townsmen tried to kill him, he and his disciples fled to Yathrib.
Not surprisingly, the Jews of Yathrib did not accept Mohammad’s claim to be a prophet of God. He tried very hard to win the Jews over by representing himself as only a teacher of the creed of Abraham. He even adopted the Jewish Sabbath, some dietary laws, and initially required prayer toward Jerusalem rather than Mecca.139
Believe or Be Beheaded
The Jews, however, were not deceived and refused to acknowledge him as anything but a false prophet. This infuriated Mohammad, who wrote into Islam a perpetual doctrine against Jews and then initiated an action that would become his standard pattern—the sword. He marched against this particular Jewish tribe and besieged their village. When they surrendered and came out one by one, they were beheaded. So the first Muslim massacre was executed on the Jews. The pattern of “confess Islam or face the sword” was established in this action.
Mohammad was anxious to spread Islam beyond Medina. After the Jews, who not only rejected but also opposed him, were dealt with, he began to train his disciples as warriors and developed a new strategy for defending Medina. He had them dig a long deep trench along the side of the city where the Meccans were expected to attack.
The Battle of the Trench
Although simple by modern standards, this strategy was totally innovative in seventh-century Arabia. Unable to get beyond the trench, the Meccan army laid siege to Medina.
Some of the surviving Jewish citizens within the city seized this opportunity to attack Mohammad’s army from behind. He had to divide his army to deal with a two-front battle. But a sand storm suddenly struck and forced the Meccans to pull back. Then the Muslims turned their whole army upon the Jews and slaughtered them.
The Battle of the Trench is commemorated as one of the most decisive and critical battles in the formative stages of Islam.
The Critical Battle of Badr
At the wells of Badr, near the coast of the Red Sea, Mohammad’s three-hundred-man army was caught off guard by a superior three-to-one force from Mecca. Although outnumbered, the Muslims defeated the Meccans.
Mohammad claimed that his victory was due to thousands of angels, led by Jabril (Gabriel), who fought for them.
I mention this battle as significant because if Mohammad’s army had lost, or if Mohammad had been killed, it would have ended the Muslim movement. The victory gained both converts as well as prestige among the Arabs and other people of the region.
“QURAYSH MODEL” OF MECCAN CONQUEST
Three years after the Battle of Badr, a ten-thousand-man Meccan army again laid siege to Medina, but the Quraysh tribe of Mecca was not able to conquer the city. On the other hand, Mohammad was not yet strong enough to defeat the Quraysh tribe, so he signed a ten-year treaty of non-aggression with Mecca. However, by A.D. 630, barely a year later, Mohammad had built up a strong army. He ignored the treaty and stormed Mecca by surprise, quickly conquering the city. At last he made himself ruler of the city of his birth.
Mohammad’s first act was to establish Mecca as the holiest city of Islam. John Noss writes:
One of his first acts was to go reverently to the Ka’aba; yet he showed no signs of yielding to the ancient Meccan polytheism. After honoring the Black Stone and riding seven times around the shrine, he ordered the destruction of the idols within it and sanctioned the use of the well Zamzam and restored the boundary pillars defining the sacred territory around Mecca.140
Mohammad then proclaimed
the Ka’abah as “Haram” (forbidden to non-Muslims). Islam now had two capitals—Medina the political, and Mecca the religious.
Since that time, Muslims have quoted the “Quraysh Model” as justification for deceptive treaties. This model means: “Negotiate ‘peace’ with your enemy until you become strong enough to annihilate him.” This is the justification Chairman Yasser Arafat quoted in Arabic to the Muslim world when he signed the Oslo Agreement. Muslims believe that no infidels really understand what the Quraysh Model means—and for the vast majority of non-Muslims, that is a correct assumption.
WHY JEWS WERE PERSECUTED
Mohammad and his disciples treated the Jews much more severely than any other “unbelievers.” Why? “They had irritated him by their refusal to recognize him as a prophet, by ridicule and by argument,” explains Guillaume. “And of course their economic supremacy was a standing irritant.”
Guillaume continues, “Their leaders opposed his claim to be an apostle sent by God, and though they doubtless drew some satisfaction from his acceptance of the divine mission of Abraham, Moses and the prophets, they could hardly be expected to welcome the inclusion of Jesus and Ishmael among his chosen messengers.”141
Mohammad decided that these non-believers—these skeptics—right there in his own homeland had to be eliminated if he was going to fulfill his imperial ambitions. So Mohammad decreed a deadly Islamic law: “Two religions may not dwell together on the Arabian Peninsula.”
ARABIAN HOLOCAUST
After issuing this decree, Mohammad wasted no time in enforcing it. He went after all the Jewish communities of northern Arabia. He systematically slaughtered them all. First the Quraiza tribe was exterminated. Then Mohammad sent messengers to the Jewish community at the oasis of Khaibar, “inviting” Usayr— their war chief—to visit Medina for peace negotiations.
“Usayr set off with 30 companions and a Muslim escort,” writes historian Norman Stillman. “Suspecting no foul play, the Jews went unarmed. On the way the Muslims turned upon the defenseless delegation, killing all but one who managed to escape.”142
Mohammad then attacked and destroyed their whole community.
Mohammad justified this treachery by saying, “War is deception.” War practiced according to this Muslim doctrine was not just deception, it was a literal hell—even with the primitive weapons of the seventh century. The complete annihilation of the two Arabian-Jewish tribes, with every man, woman, and child slaughtered, is, according to the late Israeli historian and President Itzhak Ben-Zvi, “a tragedy for which no parallel can be found in Jewish history.”143
Parenthetically, in the West’s current war against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, it would be good for the leaders to remember this “Islamic tactic of warfare.” According to this “religious” doctrine of Islam, what Muslims say does not have to be true— after all, to them, “War is deception.” And the end justifies the means.
A HERITAGE OF BRUTALITY
As an example of the enormity of Islamic brutality and barbarity, after another Jewish town surrendered to the Muslims, approximately one thousand men were beheaded in one day. The women and children were sold into slavery.144
Elsewhere, as the attacks on the Jews continued, some managed to survive. Under a new Islamic policy, non-Muslims or “infidels” were permitted to maintain their land so long as they paid a 50 percent tribute for their “protection.”145
“Thus the Jewish dhimmi evolved—the robbery of freedom and political independence compounding the extortion and eventual expropriation of property,” writes Peters. “Tolerated between onslaughts, expulsions and pillages from the Arab Muslim conquest onward, the non-Muslim dhimmi—predominantly Jewish but with Christians too—provided the important source of religious revenue through the ‘infidel’s’ head tax. He became very quickly a convenient political scapegoat and whipping boy as well.”146
THE “IRRESISTIBLE APPEAL” OF ISLAM
As noted earlier, the Bedouin was raised to fight, raid, and pillage. It was endemic in his genes. As historian Philip Hitti wrote, “The raid is raised by the economic and social conditions of desert life to the rank of a national institution. It lies at the base of the economic structure of Bedouin pastoral society. In desert land, where the fighting mood is a chronic mental condition, raiding is one of the few manly occupations. An early Arab poet gave expression to the guiding principle of such life in two verses: ‘Our business is to make raids on the enemy, on our neighbor and on our own brother, in case we find none to raid but a brother!’”147
And now comes Mohammad, who tells them they can fight, raid, and pillage in the sanctified service of Allah—and keep the booty as well. Their fighting is now raised to the level of a “holy war” in the cause of Allah. In fact, an old Arabic word was dusted off and given new meaning— Jihad, Holy War.”
Guillaume explains how this new policy of repression and confiscation led to Islam’s growing appeal among the nomadic Arab tribes:
Much of the wealth of the country which had been concentrated in the hands of the Jews had now been seized by the Muslims, who were no longer indigents but wealthy landowners, men of substance, owning camels and horses and their own weapons… . Mohammad’s fame spread far and wide, and the Bedouin flocked to him in thousands.148
The fact that the plunder of Jewish people directly led to the explosive growth and popularity of Islam among the Arabs is supported by Islamic historian Ali Dashti, who writes, “The immediate step which secured the economic base and strengthened the prestige of the Muslims was their seizure of the property of the Jews at Yathrib.”149
THE PRECEDENT OF PREY
The betrayal and killing of the Jews at Medina, the massacres of the Nadhir and Kainuka tribes, and the dispossession of property by Muslims set up what Joan Peters rightly calls “the precedent of prey”—a pattern that would be repeated again and again. The agrarian and merchant Jews lucky enough to escape death would be plundered and exploited by the nomadic Arabs. Islam not only gave them an excuse for such oppression, it commanded it.
“It is likely that among the Jewish refugees fleeing from Arabia were numbers of Jews whose ‘Palestinian’—or Judean—ancestors had fled from the Romans,” writes Peters. The “Judeans,” Peters continues,
… returned to seventh-century Palestine, joining their Jewish brethren who had never left. Ironically, the Jewish refugees return coincided with the introduction of the Arab conquerors from the desert; the very invaders who had forced themselves in and the Jews out of their homes in Arabia would now plunder Judah-Palestine in the identical pattern. And the Jews who inhabited many towns of “Palestine” uninterruptedly would one day in the twentieth century be forced out as the Arabian Jews had been—by slaughter or expropriation and terrorizing. The towns would then, in the later twentieth century, be touted as “purely Arab Palestinian areas since time immemorial,” just as the Arabian Peninsula had come to be perceived as “purely Arab,” when in fact the holy Arab Muslim city of Medina had been originally settled by Jews.150
IMPERATIVE HISTORY YOU WILL RARELY HEAR
If you think over this correction of history, it is truly remarkable. Talk about myths. The Arab Muslims have spun the mother of all myths with their claim that “Palestine has always been Arab— from time immemorial.”
All over the world today—from Georgia to Azerbaijan to Serbia to India to Sudan and Eritrea—long-forgotten ethnic tensions resulting from historical injustices and memories are on the rise. Is it any wonder, given the enormity of the atrocities against the Jews, that Israelis would be just a little suspicious of today’s experts who are quick to say, “The past is the past”? No wonder Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, “It isn’t the size of Israel that bothers the Muslims; it is the existence of Israel.”
Until this vital history is fully explored in a truthful and open way, there is no hope of rectifying the Middle East’s historical injustices. “The Medina Legacy” established a pattern of institutionalized
Islamic anti-Semitism that is at the very root of today’s Middle East crisis. Without addressing that reality, there is no hope of understanding, let alone settling, the conflict. And the current idiotic handicap of “political correctness” that has been placed on all things Islamic only hinders the crucial historical facts from being discovered and understood.
[ NINE ]
INSTITUTIONALIZED ANTI-SEMITISM
“The power struggle between Israel and the Arabs is a long-term historical trial. Victory or defeat are for us questions of existence or annihilation, the outcome of an irreconcilable hatred.”
—AL RIYADH SAUD, SAUDI ARABIAN LEADER
“The war is open until Israel ceases to exist and until the last Jew in the world is eliminated.”
—HAMAS LEADER151
HOW ENMITY BECAME A RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE
What began as rivalry between brothers degenerated into a family feud. Then it evolved into an everlasting, irreconcilable enmity.
There were some cases of reconciliation between the Arabs and Jews of Arabia in the centuries just before the birth of Mohammad. The Jews were not loved, but they were accepted. Some Arabs who lived by Jewish communities even converted to Judaism.
Joan Peters notes concerning this period, “It was the Prophet Mohammad himself who attempted to negate the positive image of the Jew that had been prevalent earlier.”152
Hatred of Jews in Islam is justified as a religious cause. Islam literally resurrected the ancient enmities and jealousies of the sons of Ishmael, Esau, and Keturah toward the Jews and enshrined that malevolence into a basic doctrine of their religion.
Though the information in this chapter may be a bit overloaded with facts, it is absolutely essential to understand if we are to see through the double-speak and outright fabrications set forth by Muslims in negotiations over Palestine with Western diplomats.