Posted on 08/26/2003 12:26:13 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
It's tempting to laugh off the claim by a dean of an Egyptian university preparing to sue the Jews of the world for looting Egypt during the Exodus thousands of years ago.
Dr. Nabil Hilmi is rallying attorneys and politicians around the idea of reverse slave reparations – suing the Jews who suffered in slavery in Egypt for 400 years because, he claims, they stole tons of gold before they left.
One might suggest it's a little late for such a claim. One might remind the Egyptians it's normally the slave who asks for recompense, rather than the slaveholder. One might dismiss the whole notion as just a bit of hyperbolic propaganda. One might even point out that while the modern nation of the United Arab Republic is often referred to as Egypt, the people of Egypt today are not the descendants of the Egyptians of Pharaoh's day.
Indeed, if Exodus is the historical record of the wholesale ripoff alleged by the Egyptians, it's a record that suggests the Egyptians willingly gave silver, gold and clothing for their journey.
"And he [Pharaoh] called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, 'Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as ye have said," the story relates in Exodus 12:31-36. "'Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also.'
"And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We be all dead men.
"And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders.
"And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians."
Notice the Egyptians begged the Israelites to hurry and leave Egypt, clearly not believing they would ever see their valuables again. But I don't expect Hilmi and those participating in this ludicrous lawsuit to change their minds based on facts.
What I see as significant in this story is the way the Arab world continues to rewrite the history of the Middle East making the Arabs the victims and the Jews the oppressors. As far-fetched as this story sounds to most of us today, it will indeed have currency in the Middle East, where the Jew is viciously maligned in a systematic campaign of racist hatred the likes of which the world has never known.
This is a region where 300 million people have convinced themselves – and most of the rest of the world – that Jews invaded a land called Palestine and stole the land from the indigenous people. It just didn't happen that way. In fact, before Yasser Arafat hijacked the name "Palestinian" in 1964, most people thought of Palestinians as Jews. There never had been in the history of the world an actual nation known as Palestine. But until Israel was reborn in 1948, the Jews who lived there referred to themselves as Palestinians.
Far from chasing the Arabs out of the land, it was the Arab leadership – notably Egypt's Gamal abdel-Nasser – who urged them to leave because their "liberation" was at hand.
The Arab world – and I say this as an Arab-American proud of his ancestry – boldly and shamelessly accuses the Jews of doing what it does.
It was the Jewish people who were cast out of the Arab world by the hundreds of thousands – with little more than the clothes on their backs. It was the Jews who considered themselves fortunate to have escaped the clutches of the Arab world with their lives. It was the Jews who were persecuted by the Arab world – and continue to be persecuted today.
And that's why this lawsuit is really no laughing matter.
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