Thread by @ChayasClan

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I would recommend everybody interested in the Truth to read this. It is important in fighting the lies and propaganda spread everywhere. All of the lies.

After the pogrom against the Jews today in Amsterdam, I thought it was important to go back to the beginning of everything, and refer back to history, and I mean real history.

What I’ve written and added below will upset many, some because of it’s heartbreaking detail, and many of the propagandists who have spent a year spreading lies and false history. But it is important in the age of information and disinformation, of lies and propaganda, that some critical truths are offered to everyone. It is only in the context of truth that we can all understand the present.

October 7 changed everything. Not just because it happened, and not even just what took place (because much of what occurred on that day had happened dozens of times before) but because the events of October 7 didn’t start then, nor in 1948, and nor did it start a decade or two decades before that. The events of October 7 have been inflicted on the Jews in this land for hundreds of years.

Now to many, they try sell you the story that all of this started because Jews woke up one day and decided to create Zionism in the late 1890’s, and then pushed to immigrate to the land that is now Israel and force the Arabs of the land out.

But the truth is very different. In fact, so shockingly different that it will pierce the heart of many who will read this with heartbreaking pain and anguish at just how much the Jewish people have suffered at the brutality of the Arabs.

The truth will shock many, and it destroys every ounce of propaganda ever told by Arabs and their supporters. But most importantly, it is the truth, and everyone should know it.

Before Israel’s Independence, before Zionism even started, there were Jews on this land, and many of them. And before Zionism was created in the 1890’s, Jews from around the Middle East and all the way as far as Russia and Lithuania returned in numbers, from as early as the 16th century. That’s right… much of everything that is happening today has been happening on this very land that is now Israel for hundreds and hundreds of years, long before Hagana and the Stern Gang and Irgun and all the other excuses the propagandists and revisionists like to tell you. But unlike them and their cohorts of misinformation, we have the truth, and now, so will you.

For those who will try deny the truth, I have added references and citations so everyone can research it for themselves.

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In 1831, Southern Syria, the Arabic name for the province better known as the Holy Land of which Safed was a part, was annexed by Mehemet-Ali, Viceroy of Egypt. Safed’s Jewish community was one of the largest in the country, and had long been predominantly Jewish, as evidenced around 1625 by the Italian orientalist Franciscus Quaresmius, who wrote of Safed that it was “inhabited mainly by Hebrews, where they have their synagogues and schools”.

The community was strengthened by the arrival of Russian Jews between 1776-1781, followed by Jews from Lithuania around 1809.

Safed is part of the vilayet (and administrative part of the Ottoman Empire) of Sidon, and the vilayet’s Jews lived mainly in Safed and Tiberias. From 1831, Egyptian governance of the Holy Land, delegated by Méhémet-Ali to Ibrahim Pacha, led to a process of modernization that upset the traditional social balance between communities, and, ultimately, to an uprising by the rural Arab population that focused its violence on the Jews.

Indeed, one of Mehemet-Ali’s main decisions was to favor Jews and Christians, who had until then been overlooked, in the management and administration of his provinces. He also sought to surround himself with many Westerners to carry out major reforms and large-scale projects.

It was under his reign that Ashkenazi Jews obtained the annulment of the Ottoman decree prohibiting them from settling in Jerusalem. Hence the anger of the main notables, both Islamic religious dignitaries and local rural chiefs who, from Nablus to Hebron, and from Jerusalem to Jaffa, saw their power strictly controlled by the administration of Mehemet-Ali of Egypt and not by Istanbul. What’s more, Governor Ibrahim Pasha, sent by Mehemet-Ali, implemented a major tax reform that introduced equality before the law: this was bound to upset the privileged, who had been brought back under common law, and upset the social balance as soon as they could no longer live – as they once did – off the taxes paid by non-Muslims. Added to this were new taxes on harvests, particularly olives, which remained a major produce in the region.
Continuing with his reformist approach, Ibrahim Pacha implemented compulsory conscription through a lottery system that involved the entire population. This decision added to the dissatisfaction of the predominant peasantry. This policy of openness towards Christian and Jewish minorities provoked the wrath of both conservative and popular circles, suddenly forced to admit the disappearance of the discriminated condition of the Jews, which until then had been the only mark of their presumed superiority.

They then fomented and led an insurrection to get rid of them, targeting non-Muslims and, in particular, Jews, who were to pay a high price. It was against this backdrop that, in May 1834, revolt broke out in the regions of Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem and Safed.

Furious farmers, probably incited by a local preacher named Muhammad Damoor who proclaimed himself an “Islamic prophet”, attacked the Jews, destroying their homes and committing all manner of violence. The pogrom officially began on June 15, 1834. It lasted thirty-three days. It was carnage. Armed Arab and Bedouin villagers, as well as the inhabitants of Safed (including Turks), massacred the Jews and raped their wives. The death toll probably exceeded five hundred. Synagogues were looted and then set on fire, and precious objects stolen or destroyed. In his book “The Events of Time” (Korot Ha Itim), Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Kamenitz bears witness to the violence: “On Sunday, Sivan 18, looters from neighboring villages (Safed) went on the rampage. They were joined by residents of other provinces. With swords and deadly weapons, they threw themselves on Jews, pushed them to the ground, tore off the clothes of both men and women, drove them naked from the town and ransacked their possessions…/

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Nothing remained. They even tore up the Torah scrolls as well as the talettim and Tefillin.”

From his hiding place, Rabbi Israel of Shklov sent several letters to the consuls of foreign states in Beirut. He informed them in detail of the hardships endured by several of their nationals, Jewish subjects “protected” by foreign powers. In response, the consuls encouraged Ibrahim Pacha to go to Safed to quell the rebellion. He entrusted this mission to the Druze emir, Emir Bashir, who came down to Galilee from his home in Lebanon. By mid-July 1834, the riot had subsided and most of the rioters had fled. Several of their leaders were arrested and executed in the street. When the Jewish residents of Safed came back to their homes after the looting and destruction, despite the aid from consuls to the neediest among them, the majority found themselves devastated. They managed to salvage less than 10% of their belongings’ worth.

Additionally, the sole Hebrew printing press in the entire region of the Holy Land, established three years prior by an Ashkenazi Jew named Israel Bak (1797-1834), was demolished.
The violence quickly spilled over from Safed into Judea, further south. Ibrahim Pasha assembled several thousand Egyptian soldiers and marched towards Jerusalem. The journey was arduous, hindered by insurgents controlling the villages along the road.

Upon reaching the Holy City, Ibrahim Pasha liberated six hundred Egyptian soldiers who had been barricaded in the citadel and ultimately quelled the rebellion.

Meanwhile, the Ottoman authorities had allowed the rioters to go unchecked.

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The 1834 pogrom was repeated in August 1838.

Over three days, the Druze, supported by Arabs, rebelled against Egyptian rule and once again attacked the Jewish community in Safed. The devastation mirrored that of 1834, with Jews murdered, homes plundered, synagogues desecrated, and women assaulted.

Many Jews sought refuge in Saint-Jean-d’Acre, or Jerusalem, resulting in fewer than a thousand families remaining in Safed. Louis Loewe, who would later serve as the secretary to the renowned English Jewish philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore, was in the Holy Land at the time and can attest to these events:

“In addition to everything they had looted, the Druze demanded from the Jews a sum equivalent to 2,500 English pounds, which of course the Jews were unable to pay. The Druze then seized the rabbi in charge of the Ashkenazi community, an elderly man, tied his hands and feet and placed the blade of a sword on his neck. They threatened to cut off his head if the money is not paid immediately.

He did not ask to be spared his life, which he was willing to sacrifice it if it meant saving his community. All he asked for is that a little clean water be poured over his hands so that he can say a prayer and proclaim that God is just in all his ways. Then all present let out a heart-rending cry, and the Druze themselves seem to have been touched. They withdrew the sword and finally agreed to a settlement with the community, giving it time to find a way to borrow the sum demanded.”

The pogroms of Safed in 1834 and 1838 were driven by religious animosity, a pattern similarly seen in the massacres of Christians by the Druze on Mount Lebanon in 1860. Between 9 July and 17, 1860, violence erupted from Lebanon and the Golan Heights, reaching Damascus. Nearly six thousand Christians fell victim to the bloodshed, with almost a third of the city’s Christian population left by the Ottoman governor Ahmed Pasha to face the attackers. This massacre prompted a mass exodus of Christians seeking refuge in Europe, Africa, the Americas, and even Egypt.

Many Christian families of Syrian and Lebanese descent found sanctuary in Egypt towards the close of the nineteenth century.

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The above are just two out of many pogroms that were inflicted on the Jews in the Holy Land. And following the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a new round of pogroms began, led by Amin al Husseini who was a fierce anti Zionist. He would later form an alliance with the Nazis and Hitler himself to implement their joint “final solution to the Jewish problem”. This alliance let to the Holocaust of Nazi Germany and Europe during World War Two, as well as al Husseini’s goal of eliminating all the Jews in the Holy Land that exists today as it has since 1948 in his long list of successors.

And, as they say, the rest is history.

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References and Citations:

Georges Bensoussan est l’auteur des ouvrages Les Origines du conflit israélo-arabe (1870-1950), Paris, PUF, Collection Que sais-je?, 2023 ; Les Juifs du monde arabe : la question interdite, Paris, Odile Jacob, 2017 ; Juifs en pays arabes : le grand déracinement, 1850-1975, Paris, Tallandier, 2012 ; Une histoire intellectuelle et politique du sionisme : 1860-1940, Paris, Fayard, 2002.

Albert Memmi, Juifs et Arabes, Gallimard, 1974.

Dominique and Janine Sourdel, Dictionnaire historique de l’islam, PUF, 1996.

Ibid

Bulletin de l’Alliance israélite universelle, year 1910

Abraham Yaari, Massaot Eretz-Israel (James’ Journey to Jerusalem), in Hebrew, Ramat Gan, Massada Editions, 1976, quoted in Renée Neher-Bernheim, La Vie juive en Terre sainte 1517-1918, Calmann-Lévy, 2001, p. 118-119.

Abraham Yaari, Letters from the Land of Israel (Igrot Ereṣ Yiśra’el ), Ramat Gan, Massada, 1971, p. 358, and quoted in R. Neher Bernheim, Jewish Life in the Holy Land, Calmann-Lévy, 2001, p. 171.

Renée Neher-Bernheim, op. cit., p. 173.