A Brief History of Migrations - 2
By Dr Basheer Ahmed Khan
Garden Grove, CA
The people who have been displaced most in history are Jews, sometimes by destiny and sometimes by choice, as traders, reformers and explorers. Their history of migration starts with the migration of their patriarch, Abraham who went into self-imposed exile from Mesopotamia to the Promised Land.
Very soon his great grandchildren (from Jacob AKA Israel) moved to Egypt as a consequence of the envy of the elder siblings against little Joseph (PBUH) whom they abandoned in a well. An Egyptian caravan picked him up and Joseph found a place in the court of the Pharaoh. After all the trials and tribulations, which is the fate of migrant children, Joseph became the Treasury Secretary to the Pharaoh. Therefore, the children separated from parents should keep hope.
This atrocity of elder and powerful brothers over little Joseph and his phenomenal success in Egypt is so etched in our psyche that we want to bring disenfranchised people from all over the world to America to succor their self-inflicted misery of not being able to create their American dream in their homeland. As we do not have the God consciousness of Jacob and the wisdom of Solomon, we have created immense problems with our populist agenda to lure them from all around the world. As all success starts with trials, and calamities are an opportunity to bring the best out of fighting people, those interested in these fights create more calamities. As it is difficult for people with old cultural consciousness to adjust to realities of the new life they fail and give an opportunity to those who brought them to this fate to go out to wipe the tears and become the saviors.
Coming back to the history of migration of Jews, they thrived in Egypt after Joseph became Treasury Secretary to Pharaoh. Like the other thriving communities in the course of history they also lost their way to become bonded laborers to local Egyptians. Moses, peace be upon him, liberated them from the bondage of the Pharaoh but could not take them back to the Promised Land because that was no more the vacant land promised by God to Abraham but was occupied by Philistines and the caravan of exodus was not prepared to fight them and take it back.
The Caravan of Exodus had to wander as stateless subjects for long before Saul and Samuel (PBUT) established them in the Holy Land. David and Solomon (PBUT) built a nation for them the like of which was never given to anyone. Taking advantage of the revolt against Solomon by his own people because of Sheba, Nebuchadnezzar in 500 BC destroyed Jerusalem. This was perhaps the revenge of the Mesopotamian Empire for the “blasphemy” which Abraham committed in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). This led to the exile of Jews from the Promised Land to all over the area in the first diaspora.
When Persians got the upper hand in the region, they allowed Jews to return to their homeland. Under the leadership of Maccabees and Ezra Israelites restored the rule of Torah which was lost in the first plunder and the Jewish law took shape and hold in the land. When Alexander conquered huge swaths of land, the Holy Land also came under the rule of his governor.
It was during this period that John the Baptist and Jesus (PBUT) were sent to reign in the Jewish people who were ruling Jerusalem with laws and to make them rule over them with love and God consciousness. Barabas, a Jewish revolutionary and the high priest, sabotaged the mission of Jesus. It led to incessant fights between the state of Judea and Samara disturbing the peace of the region which led to the second diaspora of Jews by the army of Titus in 1st century AD. This second diaspora was with the decree that they shall never return to their land. When the Patriarch of Jerusalem handed over the control of Jerusalem to Muslims’ Calif Omar RA, he kept this clause in the agreement. But Muslims owing allegiance to the prophets of Jews could not enforce this clause and let the Jews to enter Jerusalem quietly in small numbers.
Because of the financial help which the Jews gave them in their wars to colonize the world Great Britain opened the gates of return of the Jews to the Holy Land through the Balfour Declaration at a time when it was converting the British Empire into British Commonwealth after the Second World War. Another contributing factor which facilitated the migration of Jews from Europe to Israel was their dominance over European economy by the enterprising Jewish diaspora. Europe wanted to get rid of the Jews for this reason and in this process of migration Jews had to suffer a great loss of life and property in what is now called the Holocaust.
With support from the international community, Jews and Jewish Christians have returned in great numbers to Palestine displacing Palestinians from their birth place and creating the State of Israel. With neighboring Arab countries in shambles, Israel is now aspiring for Greater Israel and looking forward to expanding its borders from the Nile to Euphrates considering these two great rivers to be its legitimate security needs in the land promised by God. While Zionist Jews have their homeland in the Promised Land the Orthodox Jews and the Gentiles are waiting in America and Europe for the second coming of Jesus to take them to this Promised Land.
As the enterprise of Greater Israel is taking shape the Arab countries are undergoing an implosion under the populist agenda of establishing freedoms and justice in their land displacing the dictators ruling over them. This has resulted in a deluge of refugee either in their own land or in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Europe and the whole world.
Entrance of thousands of refugees from destabilized Middle East and North Africa and reaching Europe has led to the rise of right wing parties in Europe. This should be viewed as the deja vu of horror that Europe had to face in the past when Greeks and Jews entered their lands and changed their outlook from pragmatic to nationalist and then fascist. This trend is real, and it has to be understood in all its dimensions by people on either side to solve it in practical ways. Otherwise those who are hell bent on creating a clash of civilizations to advance their own agenda of “Greater Israel” and “Greater Middle East” will cause a Third World War at the time of their choosing. Those who believe in and are waiting for the Messiah after having mistreated hundreds of them in the course of history have the power of the media to create one to take this world to Armageddon.
President Trump thinks that he has dissuaded PM Netanyahu from their nationalistic aspiration of Greater Israel by moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and by giving a cold shoulder to the right of return of the Palestinians to their home ensuring the Jewish nature of state of Israel. But Israel and its friends are hellbent on achieving its goal by prolonging the infighting amidst the Arab neighbors giving Israel an alibi to take over the region.
The promise to resettle the refugees from Arab lands who are now in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and the rest of the world back in the land to which they belong seems to be in accordance with the aspiration of most people who do not want to leave their motherland. They have realized that they were a victim of the adventure of establishing democracy in their land by those who hobnob with its “dictators”. Will these transfers be a part of Two State Solution or One State is still not clear as everything else in the Middle East. Will there be a Gen. Mattes plan for Arabs as there was a Martial Plan for Europe and Japan after the war is still not spelled out. I think the 700 billion dollars allocated for defense spending under McCain’s name should be used for this instead of an Armageddon by the radicles that conspired to bring the world to its brink. This will make America not just Great but the Greatest Nation like of which was never given to anyone after Solomon. This will also end the old rivalries in the region between Israel and its Muslim neighbors.
America as a Judeo-Christian nation has a great interest in the enterprise of Israel. As a result of the inquisition and wars in Europe many Jews came to settle in America much early. After the holocaust this exodus was amplified and contributed greatly to American society. They encouraged the downtrodden people from all over the world to come to America and build alliances with them to become a dominant political and economic force in the building of America.
How grateful the American nation is to the Jewish enterprise and to Israel was dramatized by Al Gore while addressing AIPAC during his bid for Presidency in 2000. He said: When the American Ambassador to Israel visited PM Ben-Gurion, he was doing Sis Asana (a yogic exercise with head down and legs up in the air). The ambassador also went into the same position and said: your Excellency America can go to any length to see eye to eye with Israel. US might be Seeing Eye to Eye with Israel, but the whole world is topsy-turvy.Those who do not want the world to see this reality are luring it to believe that the world is flat and everyone has equal opportunity to compete in it. They are luring people to believe in this line through a populist agenda which no country can afford to fulfill.
This is the story of Migration today which has taken a very ugly turn disturbing the politics, economics and race relation in the world and pushing it onto threshold of the Third World War. Those who are fanning the flame of hatred between people and nations and those who are trying to find an opportunity in it through their populist pronouncements should know that the world can’t afford any more destabilization.
I conclude this article with the impact of agriculture on migration which is the single biggest factor in all international and intra-national migrations. Family of Kennedy migrated to America from Ireland because of bad harvest of potatoes in their land. A professor of botany highlighting this in one of his lectures said: If it was not for bad crops Kennedy’s family would not have migrated to America. John F Kennedy would not have become the President of the United States and he would still be tilling his land in Ireland, may be not using the bullocks but a tractor. Someone from the audience retorted: He would at least be alive.
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