From the Video:
4000 YEAR IN 4 MINUTES
Israel and the Jews have an amazing long-standing history of over 4,000 years. This history of the state of Israel video has just the right mix of historical facts and Jewish humor to make 4000 years of Judaic history fly by in an entertaining fashion.
13 things about the state of Israel you may find interesting:
Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel in the Middle East.
Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E. the Jews have had dominion over the promised land of Israel for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.
Arabs have only had control of Israel twice – from 634 until the Crusader invasion in June 1099, and from 1292 until the year 1517 when they were dispelled by the Turks in their conquest.
For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital of Israel. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
Jerusalem, Israel is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran. There are vague references to Jerusalem in the Hadiths – stories about Mohammed – that he stopped his night journey (which the Koran explains took place in a dream!) at the “farther mosque” (or “distant place”). Muslims explain that this means “at the edge of the Temple mount”, although no direct reference to Jerusalem or the Temple Mount is made.
King David established the city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Some Muslims (i.e. those between Israel and Saudi Arabia) pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms. They lost much more in possessions than the Arabs who fled from Israel.
The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.
Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples’ lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.
The PLO’s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them with weapons.
Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites in Israel were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
Faisal’s ambitions were opposed by his elder brother, Abdullah, who strove to transform the emirate of Transjordan (latterly Jordan), which he ruled since 1921, into a springboard for the creation of a vast empire comprising Syria, Palestine, and possibly Iraq and Saudi Arabia; and it was this ambition, rather than the desire to win independence for the Palestinian Arabs, that was the main catalyst of the pan-Arab invasion of the nascent state of Israel in mid-May 1948.
Abdullah, who led the invasion, sought to incorporate mandatory Palestine, or substantial parts of it, into his coveted empire.
Egypt wanted to prevent that eventuality by laying its hands on southern Palestine.
Syria and Lebanon sought to annex the Galilee.
Iraq viewed the invasion as a stepping stone to bringing the entire Fertile Crescent under its rule.
Had Israel lost the 1948 war, its territory would have been divided among the invading Arab forces. The name Palestine would have vanished into the dustbin of history. By surviving the pan-Arab assault, Israel has paradoxically saved the Palestinian national movement from complete oblivion.
During the decades following the war, the Arab states manipulated the Palestinian national cause to their own ends:
