Prophets Of The Abrahamic Faiths Share the Same God. Can Peace Prevail?

With the hostage exchange successful, Israel might get under increasing pressure to ceasefire, or at the very least hold the pause for longer in the interest of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Militarily speaking, the Hamas cadres have melted away with the civilians to south of Gaza city, and the leadership anyways is in safe houses in Doha and Istanbul. With short term objective of a visible disproportionate response to send a message to both Hamas and home audiences achieved, the Israeli Defence Forces would spend the medium term in consolidating their hold over the captured Gaza territory, dismantle terror infrastructure, and parallelly go after the senior Hamas leaders abroad.

Could that mean the war in the Middle East is going to be over? Would it pave the way for a truce in the region howsoever tenuous? More importantly what of the Gramscian war of position in which Hamas seems to be winning, or Israel seems losing. Why I ask? The liberal hold over the western media and academia has succeeded in mainstreaming the narrative that the Palestinians are the wronged party to the dispute. The Arabs look reasonable. And Israel backed by much of the West the irrational aggressor.

Take for instance the longform interview Piers Morgan did with American satirist Bassem Yousef. While Morgan got the optics right when he pushed Jeremy Corbyn in a corner on condemnation of Hamas, in the Yousef interview he got blindsided like a rabbit under the lights of an oncoming car. Bassem is an Egyptian Muslim with a Palestinian wife from Gaza. A cardiologist by education, he turned a satirist and migrated to the United States of America as Uncle Sam obviously provided safer climes for satire vis a vis the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Bassem’s construct of what constitutes the Arab Israel problem begins with the Naqba in 1948 for and the displacement of the Palestinian nation to rehabilitate the Jewish nation by a guilt-ridden Europe post the holocaust. Before 1948 it was a Judeo-Christian problem going all the way back to the original sin of Christ’s betrayal. From Christ, Bassem jumps directly to 1095 CE when Pope Irwin II ordered the crusades which while aimed at Muslim hordes only ended up killing 2,000 Jews! From the eleventh century, Bassem shifts the story straight to the holocaust, and post war guilt of the British making them consider Uganda or even Argentina as possible ghetto-destinations for a Jewish state, before finally settling for the original promised land of Israel! And so, the Jewish problem is not an Arab-Muslim problem, it’s a European problem thrust upon the Arabs.  

It is interesting how an enlightened liberal modern Egyptian Arab Muslim immigrant to the West absolves the larger Islamic Ummah of any responsibility of anti-semitism. When Morgan asks can the Palestinians be accommodated in neighbouring Arab states, Bassem exclaims that would be an invitation to third world war! He even goes on to say why not the 50 states of USA, or 44 nations in Europe take back the Jews. From river to the sea, Palestine would be free, Bassem says without saying it. Morgan of course has no answer. Here’s some history that could have helped Morgan prepare little better.

The Islamic claim to Al Aqsa goes back to the story of Al Isra and Miraj as contained in the Quran and Hadiths, according to which prophet Mohammed travelled via Jerusalem (from the Jacob’s rock on Temple Mount) to the heaven where he was given an audience by God himself. Whether it was a dream, or a physical journey the prophet made in one night, what is relevant for the present-day conflict is that it created a claim for Muslims in perpetuity over what had been the holy site of the Temple Mount for Jews for at least two millennia before the advent of Islam.  

Incidents during the life of the prophet itself set the tone for the Islamic world’s larger relationship with the Israeli nation. Upon his migration to Yathrib (Medina) from Makkah (Mecca), the initial engagement between the prophet and the Jews was cordial to the extent that Mohammed’s secretary who inscribed much of the Quran was a Jew by the name of Zayd Ibn Thabit who of course later converted to Islam. The covenant of Medina was signed between the Muslims and the Jews giving some period of peace. But it was not long before the gloves were off between two monotheistic faiths. So much so that a good part of Surahs (chapters) al Nisa and al Hashr in the Quran are dedicated to chastening the Jews for not accepting Mohammed as their prophet in line with Moses and Jesus. Post the victory in the battle of Badr a resurgent Muslim nation started resetting the terms of engagement beyond the covenant of Medina. The murder of Jewish poet Ka’b Ibn Al Ashraf, for his poetry against Islam, the blockade and expulsion of the Jewish tribes of Banu Qaynuqa and Banu al Nadir left Medina essentially a Muslim city, with most of its Jewish population expelled. After the Makkan siege of Medina, the final showdown between Muslims and Jews saw the blockade of the last surviving tribe of Banu Qurayzah and their execution in the presence of Prophet Mohammed himself.

This seventh century history was of course conveniently papered over by Bassem in the absence of Morgan’s lack of understanding. By the time the interview is over, Morgan is left spouting mea-culpa for the West’s guilt from Iraq to Afghanistan and putting good part of the onus on Israel. The Abraham Accords were a sincere attempt at overcoming this difficult history with statesmanship and enlightened moderation from UAE, Bahrain, and Oman. Saudi Arabia was all set to join the initiative. Jordan and Egypt have existed at peace with Israel for decades now, and the October 7 setback should not be allowed to derail the ultimate objective of Al Isra and Miraj – the prophets of the Abrahamic faiths share the same God. Can peace prevail?