Trudy Gold and Sa'ad Khaldi
Trudy Gold in Conversation with Sa'ad Khaldi on the Pact of Umar
Trudy Gold - Conversation with Sa'ad Khaldi on the Pact of Umar
- Well, good evening, everyone. And before we start, I know that it was a very, very difficult night for an awful lot of people. And our heart goes out to our friends in Israel. And I’m sitting next to my friend, Sa'ad Khaldi and the Palestinian sitting next to the Jew. And we both feel-
Yes.
We both feel that what happened yesterday was terrible, and all we can pray for is peace, that people will come to their senses. For those of you who weren’t online last week, let me quickly introduce Sa'ad. We’ve known each other now about three or four years, haven’t we? He, in fact, has had an incredible career in teaching. That’s his main vocation. He’s a scientist and engineer. He was head of a school. He has been a school’s inspector. He’s three quarters Palestinian. He is one quarter Jewish. He’s had extraordinary background, because his family, the Khaldi family, with the justices in Jerusalem, and he is what comes from one of the most important oldest families in Jerusalem. And he’s going to talk about his father today, because his father was an incredibly important man. Actually, the man who surrendered Jerusalem in 1967. The other thing you should know about Sa'ad is that he is an educator of Yad Vashem. He’s a fellow of Yad Vashem. He is a Holocaust educator. And evidently, that goes back to when he was a young boy in Damascus. He witnessed a pogrom, and that took him on a journey to find out more about the Jewish people. And today, we are again going to be in conversation, and one of the things we’re going to talk about is the Pact of Umar. So let me start by introducing you Sa'ad. And also-
Thank you, Trudy.
You really want to start by looking, if you like, about how all our civilizations are interwoven.
Yes, yes.
So over to you.
The Roman world not only encompassed the Mediterranean, but it also moved to Britain. So in AD 43, the Romans actually arrived in this country to settle. So Caesar had briefly come, . But they were attracted by the minerals that could come from this country. But also the climate had changed. So when the Romans arrived, they realised that they could actually farm. They could actually, if you like, interact with the Britains who were there. So I want to start with a visual, just to show you that the Romans not only arrived, but they arrived in an interesting way. Currently, there is an exhibition at the British Museum, and part of that exhibition shows you Roman soldiers in different modes throughout Britain. Now, this particular image shows you a Roman-Syrian soldier. He is a Syrian archer. He’s known as Hamian. He came from Hama in Syria. And normally, the Roman army didn’t use archers, but when they made the decision to build Hadrian’s Wall, they particularly wanted it to be defensible. Plus, they had also conquered Syria. So one of the ways of making sure that the Syrians couldn’t attack them back again was actually to integrate them into the Roman Army. And they sent these Syrians all the way to this country, to Hadrian’s Wall, right up next to Scotland, and they could fire an arrow over 400 metres. So nobody was going to attack Hadrian’s Wall, given their defensive capacities. And of course, they could also supply their own legions with meat, because if you can strike an arrow from a distance of 400 metres, you’ve got an incredible ability as an archer. So let’s just move on to the next slide and have a look. That’s the actual description at the British Museum, confirming that they were Syrians, that they actually lived in this country, some of them even married. And there are various stories about the Syrian Legion. It’s also known as the Palestine Legion that was situated in the middle of Hadrian’s Wall. But just to show you the Roman connection.
And also, in the next slide, there’s an incredible Roman connection because Constantine, who is really important in the introduction of Christianity into the empire, he was in Britain, wasn’t he? And I think in the next slide, we’re going to comment-
Correct, correct. So I’ve got an actual coin, which is just here. And it is Constantine the Great. It was actually discovered in Jordan, and my mother purchased it years ago, got an actual little permit to purchase it off an archaeologist, along with two Roman lamps that I’m going to show you as well. The purpose of the Constantine coin was actually to date those lamps themselves. But Constantine was a general in York. And he declares himself to be emperor of the Western Roman Empire. The Roman Empire at that time was divided into an Eastern Roman empire and a western. He eventually defeats the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire and becomes Constantine the Great. But of course, he introduces Christianity into the Roman Empire itself. So if you could move to the next slide. And there you can see the adverse of the actual coin celebrating Constantine. And you can see the actual Roman characters. They were fairly crude coins, but they were important coins. And of course, those coins actually helped to magnify that sense of unity and power that the Roman Empire brought to its citizens. So next slide, please. Now, I got a couple of lamps. As my mother purchased these about 65 years ago, 70 years ago, they were actually dug up at Jerash.
And one is possibly Christian. That’s possibly an image of Christ. It could be a Roman God, but the archaeologist thought that it possibly was Christ. But these were made by the thousand, the light bulb of the Roman era. So archaeologists don’t consider them to be very important other than for dating purposes. So we were actually allowed to buy them. And it was a way of the archaeologist raising a little bit of money as well. He could have an extra worker if he sold a few of these things. They’ve even got a trademark on the back. So they had factories that make thousands of these things. The other one is quite interesting, because it’s actually got a soldier. You can see a shield there, and if you like a man standing. Now, Jewish lamps of the period wouldn’t have images on them. So if you were Jewish and living out in Palestine, you would make sure that if you were purchasing a lamp, it didn’t have an image. The Romans were into iconography, but the local inhabitants tended not to be. So if we can go to the next slide, because I’m going to shift immediately to Jerusalem and share a family secret with you. As Jerusalem’s oldest family, the holidays administer what is known as . As religious judges, we were required to administer properties that were given as part of religious foundations. Now, this is a pastry shop that is just behind the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. You can see it’s called Zalatimo’s. It closed because of lockdown and so on. But it has branches elsewhere. So the Zalatimo family still make their famous pastries. But I don’t know whether they have returned to the Jerusalem shop at the moment. But this is a wonderful picture that was taken about 25 years ago by a friend who was visiting Jerusalem for the celebration of the millennium. And I had told him about the pastry shop. And because he was a guest of the Greek patriarch, and the Zalatimo family is a Greek-Palestinian family, he got invited into the back of the shop, which has got a secret.
Go on.
So let’s have a look.
Let’s have a look at the secret, this is special.
Next slide, yes. So this is the baker. This is Hani, Hani Zalatimo. He produces these wonderful pastries that almost to die for and very special. The family has started out in about 1860. The actual sign of the family retired from the Ottoman Army and went to Jerusalem and set up the shop. So it has been running for at least 150 more years, and by the same family. But they store the wood in the back, and they store it in a wonderful place. So let’s have a look at the next slide. Thank you. This is the original entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Created by Constantine’s mother, she is said to have discovered the true cross at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And she goes about creating the very first church of the Holy Sepulchre. And this is all that remains of it. So actually, the back wall of the bakery is the current church of the Holy Sepulchre. But this is Roman. And from the exact time of Helena, the mother of Constantine, who was a Christian slave, it’s Constantine who feels inspired by his mother and makes the oath that if he wins his battles, he will turn the Roman world to Christianity. And so she travels to Jerusalem. She believed that she discovered the true cross. And so it is part of history. But this wonderful little bit of history is in the back of a pastry shop.
And then of course, everything is going to move on.
Yes.
And it’s going to move on to various conquests in that contested piece of land, until finally, we come to Islam and Umar. Would you explain who Umar is?
Yes. Umar is the second caliph. When the prophet Mohammed had died and his followers actually defeat the Byzantine army, and they defeated the Byzantine in 629, and just outside of Damascus, so it’s known as the Battle of Yarmuk, they capture all of Syria. And from a family point of view, I believe I’m descended from the general. Hence I get my surname, which is Khalid in Arabic, because we believe ourselves to be descended from either the Bani Khalid, which was a very famous tribe in Saudi Arabia. But the member of the Bani Khalid was Khalid, who was given the title Khalid, meaning immortal, the son of Walid. So he is the person who created the idea of desert storm, to attack in a desert storm with the wind behind you and to move swiftly and surround your enemy, or was the technique. But I don’t believe that the American army understood the word “desert storm” when they decided to attack Iraq years ago. And there was quite a bit of correspondence in the Times about that, ‘cause they managed to miss him out as the list of a hundred greatest generals. Well, I think the general who managed to capture most of these Islamic world deserved to be in that list. That somehow he got out.
It was an incredible exploit, wasn’t it? When you think how quickly the forces of Islam, they sweep out what is now Saudi. And they conquer much of the known world.
Well, they conquered both rival powers. So what happened was that the rival powers, Persia, on one hand, assassinates. And the remnants of the Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine, constantly warred with each other. And as a result, they’re the ones in the middle. And somehow, they come out of Arabia and they defeat, first of all, the Byzantines, and then they defeat the Persians as well.
And it’s Umar who lays down the foundation of the relationship between Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
Correct, yes.
So this is, and this is of course why it’s so important today.
But when Umar arrives some 10 or 15 years before, the Persians had actually sacked Jerusalem, and the Byzantines had had to send their armies to reconquer Jerusalem and get back the true cross. But things were on a sort of path of decline from the Byzantines. They weren’t as powerful as they used to be. They certainly couldn’t move swiftly, which is what the Arab armies could do. And as a result of that, the Byzantines are defeated. But before they’re defeated, almost getting wind of it, the Byzantine emperor flees Jerusalem with what he believed to be the true cross and leaves the patriarch with a minimal defence. So that he’s almost abandoned.
This is Sophronius, isn’t it?
This is Sophronius.
Yeah.
So Sophronius, as patriarch of Jerusalem and guardian to the Christians of Jerusalem, then decides to negotiate with Umar. And he sends messengers to Umar. But Umar has actually, because the Christians tended to suppress the Jewish community, the Jewish community of Syria actually sides with Umar. So the population of Homs actually sends a small brigade of Jewish warriors to join the Muslim army that eventually is ready to take Jerusalem. Well, these negotiations take place. And as a result of that, there is a sort of precedent in history so that Umar feels that he’s negotiated and he doesn’t need the army. So he decides just to take his manservant and he rides on a donkey. I know this amuses you, Trudy.
I know, because this is always a sign of the greatness. You come into Jerusalem on a donkey.
It’s wonderful.
Yes, yes, yes. So he comes in on a donkey into Jerusalem and meets with Sophronius, who is on the steps of the actual church the Holy Sepulchre there. And he decides to pray in Jerusalem, but he does not pray in the church itself. He decides to pray on the steps. As a Muslim, he prays on the steps. So he accepts the, if you like, the keys of the city from Sophronius. But as a result of that, later on, a mosque is built just next door. Two. The actual church of the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate the fact that Umar prayed there. Not in the church itself but just next door. So we get the Mosque of Umar, which is just a prayer mosque, nothing else. And nobody else other than a Muslim can enter the Mosque of Umar. That has always been the stricture with regard to the community in Jerusalem. And we’ll show you actually a picture a little bit later of the mosque of Umar in the distance. But this is quite important. So can we move to the next slide, please? Thank you. So there you can see the Temple Mount as it currently is. And our own family, being the religious judges of Jerusalem, you can just see to one side, there is what is known as the Khalidi Library. We have a wonderful collection of books dating back to the ninth century. It’s a collection. It’s in a tiny turbe or former mosque. And it is situated there. It has world heritage status as part of the wider world heritage status of Jerusalem itself. And it is still run by the family. So it’s an amazing collection there. That witnesses the capacity of the family to continue its focus on, well, one historian said, “We move from the sword to the pen.” So we have this wonderful history associated with the city itself. But on the Temple Mount, all he discovers is ruin. Yeah, and he rebuilds the mount, doesn’t he?
He rebuilds the mount.
Yeah.
And it is the Jewish community that is part of his army and the Jewish community within Jerusalem that assisted in the rebuilding of the Temple Mount. So it was joint enterprise that recreates the Temple Mount. First, they built a very simple building that was square and that was mainly wooden as the very first mosque. It doesn’t exist anymore because successive rulers decided that that wasn’t sufficient. But the very first mosque is built. And the other thing that is discovered is, of course, the site of what Muslims believed to be ascension. So this is known as the famous night journey of the prophet where he ascends to heaven. It is believed, from the very site that Jews believed that Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac, yes.
So you’ve got the centrality of Jerusalem for the three monotheistic faiths. And that’s the reality of the situation. And Umar allowed 70 families to settle in Jerusalem.
Correct, correct.
Where the 70’s a magic number. The point is he allowed a community.
Yes, and he allows them to have a synagogue.
Yeah.
As well.
Can you talk a bit about the pact itself and how it lays down?
Yes.
And it was later, there’s a little bit of a mystery about it, isn’t there? As to whether he was the, I mean, he was the father-in-law of the prophet.
He was very tolerant.
Yeah.
He was given the title al-Faruq, which actually means to possess the wisdom of Solomon, to be able to differentiate the truth between truth and lies. So it was an honorary title. But he’s venerated, and the first four caliphs are known as the Rashidun. They’re the righteous caliphs in terms of Muslim understanding. And that is particularly Sunni Muslim understanding. So Umar, you wouldn’t issue a decree in paper because paper really didn’t exist. You might issue a decree in vellum, but at that particular time, the only way you could issue a decree is in stone. So we have in stone his very first decree. So if you could move to the next slide. Thank you. This is the decree in Arabic. It’s etched into stone. This is the decree of Umar as received. I understand it. I can’t pretend I’m an Arabist, in that sense, but there you have it. And let’s have a look at the translation. Thank you, next slide. So, “In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate, this is the covenant, which Omar Ibn al-Khattab, the servant of Allah, the commander of the faithful.” Now, you also have to remember, he was father-in-law to the prophet. So he’s part of the inner circle of the prophet, but the prophet has died. So you get the title caliph, meaning deputy. So he’s considered to be the second caliph after Abu Bakr. And caliphate means carrying responsibility. So he becomes the caliph, and he grants to the people of Aelia, which was the Roman name for Jerusalem. And in terms of Bait Al Maqdis, the holy house. So the Temple Mount is considered to be holy. He grants them security of their lives, their possessions, their churches and crosses. So it’s a particular message to the Christians. But he’s also already assimilated the Jewish community into that. So they shall have freedom of religion. None shall be molested, unless they rise up as a nation. And they pay a particular tax. It’s called jizya in Arabic instead of military service. And it applies to the Jewish and the Christian communities. But he also designates a certain part of Jerusalem to be protected, particularly for the Jewish quarter. So it is by his decree that the Jewish quarter was created within Jerusalem.
And this family, I mean, they’re going to finish up in Spain, aren’t they? His descendants.
Yes.
And I would say they’re very much a tolerant-
That that leads through to the Umayyads.
Yes.
And the Umayyads, some people say that they were too relaxed, they enjoyed life too much and were too liberal. And that is true, that they did enjoy life, because actually, if you go to the Temple Mount, and we know the Temple Mount from the western wall, but from the next wall round, there is the remnants of an Umayyad palace facing the part of Jerusalem that was created by David, the Ophel Hill. And there are pillars there which show that they’re luxuriate. Some of those pillars have very on them. And the Umayyads certainly had, if you like, a little bit of a pleasure palace there. But at the same time, they have this inheritance. So they safeguard people. So the final part of that declaration, “And those who will leave the city shall be safeguarded until they reach their destination.” So this is the pact of Umar. But we have to be very careful because a ruler much later creates a covenant in his name. And the pact and the covenant aren’t quite the same.
The covenant has got much more detail, hasn’t it?
Much more detail. And it begins to differentiate against the Christians and the Jewish community. It’s more restrictive.
Can you give some examples?
Well, they’re not allowed to ride horses.
They can only ride donkeys.
They can only ride donkeys. They can’t wear the colour green, because that becomes the colour of Islam. They have to wear identifiable forms of clothing. I’m sad to say that that becomes something that is inherited within history. So if you like, they are still protected. Well, a number of the Jewish community actually rise to the position of vizier, which is chief advisor.
I think so what we can say, could I say that when Islam was more liberal-
Yes.
Then Jews could prosper under Islam, and they probably prospered far better than Christianity, because I think you can make the case that really, from this period right up until the siege of Vienna by the Turks, you had more or less a thousand years of war, didn’t you? Between Islam and Christianity. 'Cause they’re both proselytising. So consequently, if the Jews under Islam fared better under Islam, that’s the point. Even though you can become a grand vizier, you can never rule. And is that a stumbling block?
Yes, well, you also, you begin to get discrimination in terms of Islamic law, because you cannot be primary witness to something. Because again, they will only listen in a primary case to a Muslim witness. But you can be a secondary witness, but you can’t be a primary. So there are things that, if you like, begin to discriminate. But by and large, they enjoyed great protection. And there is a parallel with Polish history.
Exactly, the statute of the Polish. It’s a great sweep of history we’re talking about. And sometimes, there were periods of appalling persecution. But I think, on balance, if you’re looking at the Christian world and you’re looking at the Muslim world, in the main, the Muslim world provided, it felt secure. Jews could prosper. And indeed, far more than they did under Christianity. You just consider what is going on at the time of the Crusades.
Yes. There are periods of Muslim extremism, where Muslim is attacking Muslim.
Yes.
And so if we look at Spain, what actually happens is that the very last of the Umayyad line flees the Middle East and goes to Spain to create a kingdom in Spain that is liberal.
And that was probably the greatest period of the diaspora.
Yes.
And then, of course you had the Abbasid dynasty, which was more hostile.
So there are variations. And you have to look at the larger picture. There are Jewish scholars who write and praise what is happening in terms of their lives. They believe that, you know, there’s one writer who says, “Well, Israel has come to Spain.” So in that sense of blossoming of Jewish culture, even shared architecture, so many of the synagogues have Moorish elements in them, yes, because they’re sharing the same architects and the same understanding. And so you can move from one building to another when you visit Spain, and so there is not much difference.
Ironically, it’s the same in Poland, because the great architects who’re brought in to build the palaces sometimes built the synagogues.
Yes, yes. But even going all the way back to the prophet himself, he was affected by the Jewish communities. He was in dispute with the Jewish communities. He defeats some of the Jewish communities, which creates the rise of Islam. But he actually took Jewish wives. Now, we’re talking about the era of polygamy. Before Islam, you had polyandry in Arabia. So women could have multiple relationships. This is known as the state of disorganisation in Arabic. Jahiliyyah is sort of, and some very extreme Muslims nowadays say, “Well, the West is like Jahiliyyah.” Sort of they condemn the west. Women can have multiple relationships and so on. So if you like, yes certainly, Islam creates certain boundaries and creates the idea of modesty and dress and so on. But sometimes, these things are taken to extremes by rulers. But within the Quran itself, so there are all sorts of contradictions with Muhammad communicating with God in terms of his own circumstances. And this is all written within the Quran, but one of the famous sayings within the Quran is that there are prophets in all religions. So the more liberal Muslims add great respect for what they term the people of the book.
And also, I mean that word Sulaiman, these are the heroes of the Jews, the heroes of the Muslims, so there is this-
Yes, yes. We’ll turn to Jerusalem itself. Could have the next slide. So this is the Dome of the Rock, but it’s a wonderful view from the very top of the dome. And it is not a mosque. Can I make that quite clear? It was created as a holy building above the rock itself. It’s sometimes known as the Dome of Umar, but it’s also known as the Dome of the Rock. And of course, it is holy to Muslims and Jews. But the Christians came along as crusaders and cut some steps into it and actually plumped a cross on the top. So they used it as a church. Next slide, please. Thank you. So much later, we get the walls around Jerusalem. We even get the Golden Gate. The Golden Gate was eventually sealed.
By the Ottomans.
Yes, probably by the Ottomans to make Jerusalem much more defensible.
And that gate is so important.
Yes, and it faces the Kidron Valley. And people have beliefs that the Golden Gate will open-
The Messiah will come through.
Yes, yes. And people, even Muslims believe they will ascend to heaven through the Golden Gate. So it’s very much a venerated. It’s a lovely picture, I think. Next slide, please. Now, as I said, Umar actually prayed on the steps of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. So they create this tiny little mosque just next door. And if you look at the Dome of the Rock, just beyond it is this wonderful minaret. So that minaret is the minaret of Umar’s Mosque. I couldn’t find a good image, but I think that really gets the message through. Next slide, please. Thank you.
I love that map. It’s crusader.
It’s a crusader map of Jerusalem, of course. Everything’s been turned into church.
And you got the cross.
Yes. And it’s somewhat stylized. Those aren’t the actual, but there are main Roman streets. And if you actually visit Jerusalem, if you go in the Damascus gate, because you go over a ramp to get in through the Damascus gate, just glance downwards and you can actually see the Roman level, because Jerusalem was built up by successive, it is like Troy. They’ve built one level on the next level on the next level. I think there were seven levels in Troy. So you can actually see the Roman level. And in part, in Jerusalem, you can actually see some of the Roman levels as you go around the old city. But it is a beautiful map, I think.
In such a contested city, I mean-
Yes.
Watching the missiles overnight. And the sky. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Next slide, please. Yes, well, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt. And in our library, just by the Temple Mount, we actually have the will of Roxelana.
Who was the concubine, and then really the sultana to-
Yes, she was the chief wife of Suleiman the magnificent.
She was Slavic, wasn’t she? A redheaded slug who managed to warm her way into such a love affair that he altered the succession for her. And in fact, I’m going to have fun in this summer. I’m going to talk about her and Catherine de’ Medici and juxtapose, because they all around the same time-
But Suleiman the Magnificent actually corresponded with Henry VIII.
Yes, yes.
So they were contemporaries to the Tudors. But his famous architect, Sinan, actually rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem. And they are something like six metres thick, an amazing construction that stood the test of time.
And you have her will, don’t you, in the next slide?
Yes.
Let’s have a look.
Yes, so let’s have a look at the next slide. Now, wills were issued not only in Turkey, but they were also issued in Arabic, because essentially, the Ottomans were ruling the Arab world. So if they sent an important document to Jerusalem, it would have to be in Arabic.
That’s so beautiful.
So we have a copy in Arabic of the will of Roxelana who makes dozens of bequests, of land, of property, of religious benefits to the people. And she is the most important queen, if you like, of the Ottoman Empire. So this is a wonderful gift that she bestows on Jerusalem as her final bequest. Thank you, next slide. Now, the Byzantine world, again, we have to look at it in the sense that Christianity was actually, is a creation. And this is a wonderful image of the conference of Nicaea, in which Christianity is codified. We think that there as many as 27 gospels, but they whittled it down to four, and they’re all male, and they decide other gospels are deleted. And certainly, the female gospels are got rid of. And you get this Orthodoxy of Christianity. So it’s a very interesting picture. So Christianity is, it’d be wonderful if we could read the Gospel of Mary, which is said to have existed.
But the Mary the mother or Mary the wife? Did I say that? Come on, let’s go, let’s go.
So Miriam-
Blessed Miriam.
Yes, yes. The Byzantines actually sent a concubine to Muhammad, and she actually bore him a child who was Ibrahim. Abraham.
Abraham.
Yes, but he only lived to the age of two. So it would’ve been a very, very different world, perhaps, of Islam, had Abraham actually survived.
That’s interesting.
I think it’s interesting how these different religions and cultures have evolved, and we have to bring an understanding about these things and understand these things. Next slide, please. Yeah. Now, I don’t want to pretend that everything was wonderful. Things could be hard. So there’s this wonderful Hebrew poem that I was introduced to by Aviva Dautch, who did a workshop that I attended on ghazals. Now, ghazals can be written in Arabic, they can be written in Farsi, in Persian language, and they can be written in Hebrew. But this is one from the Sephardic area from Spain. If you like, it’s a little bit of a complaint about taxes. And they could be the taxes that the Jewish population had to pay. So let’s look at the translation, and let’s read the translation. The poem is called “The Cloak.” And I’ve got a copy here, yeah. And I’m going to read it. “My cloak is like a colander. I can sift grain through it, separate barley from wheat. Or, when the night becomes dark as my pupils spread over me as a tent, the stars are bright. Inside it I see the moon, the Pleiades, even Orion, streaming out light. I’m tired of counting its myriad holes, ragged as the teeth of a saw’s serrated bite. Now I sew up its rips, darn over the tears, but hope all that remains to bind warp and weft. If the tiniest fly lands upon it with force, I fear both the insect and I will regret. Please God, exchange my cloak. I’d like one that gives me glory or a well-tailored overcoat.”
Lovely, lovely.
It’s a lovely poem. So yeah, there could be complaint. Yes, there was Muslim protection, things could go very well, but sometimes, things could be hard on any population.
And we are going to be having lectures on these subjects in the next couple weeks.
Now, I had the challenge from Aviva to write a gazhal myself, but I noticed that time is running on. So I’m going to go to the next slide. I did write one about Safiyya, who was the Jewish consort of Muhammad. She came from a particular tribe. And because of modesty considerations, you discovered that I had hidden Safiyya’s name in the poem.
It’s clever.
Yes, yes. But I’m going to move on from that, if I may. I won’t read it just this time. We’ll go back to it perhaps in another session. But this is my father who was Palestinian leader on the West Bank. Now, he’d have described himself as a home secretary. There was a shared leadership, a member of the Nuseibeh family who had been the Jordanian ambassador in London. Anwar Nuseibeh was a great friend of his. And they acted, if you like as home secretary and foreign secretary.
Can you give the dates, in case you forget-
This is after the ‘67 war. Now, Palestinians are brilliant at government, but only local government. They have never been allowed ever to govern themselves as a country or as a nation. And my father knew and understood this. So he decided to call all the mayors together. And he and Anwar together chaired these meetings to create governance on the West Bank and in Gaza. Now, eventually, Anwar decided to leave to Amman, so my father had the pressure of just doing it in by himself. He did like to smoke. And right at the end of it, he was smoking with the stress of Palestinian leadership. He was smoking a hundred cigarettes a day, and he knew it was killing him. So I don’t want to pretend that these things were always easy. But he decides, he consults, he decides to talk directly to the Israeli leadership, and he talks to the leaders of the opposition. He talks to Shimon Peres. He talks to Rabin. And he talks to Menachem Begin. And these discussions were actually recorded by David Kimche, one of the two Kimche brothers who went on to be the head of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. And they were even published, or some excerpts were published in an American Israeli magazine. This was a very dangerous thing to do in 1968. There had just been, if you like, 12 months before the Arab Israeli war, but he felt that he should do it. And he was going to explore all sorts of possibilities. Now, next slide, please. One of the possibilities that he was going to explore had been put forward by the American Secretary of State under Eisenhower. My father had actually fought in the battle of El Alamein, and this proposal said that you should flood the Qattara Depression. Now, you’ve got to understand, how was the Black Sea formed? It was formed when the ice age ceased, the ice caps melted, and the sea levels rose. And this is nowhere in the flood. We’ve got Palestinians in camps all over the Middle East, and we’ve gone along with this idea of never allowing them to return because Israel has been created, but they’re not allowed to have employment if they’ve registered as a refugee.
Can you explain that, because people might-
Yes.
You’re talking about now in Egypt or Georgia.
Yes, or in Lebanon. A law was passed that you were not allowed to actually practise between 60 or 80 professions. If you had registered as a refugee in the Lebanon, you could not become X, Y and Z, a lawyer, you couldn’t become a member of parliament, you couldn’t participate in all sorts of different things. By law, you were excluded.
They were used, weren’t they?
They were used, they were used.
They became sort of torn in a terrible Arab League.
Yes, the Arab League came up with all these different, and they decided that, they pointed the finger at the creation of Israel. And the myth of return was created. I’m 75 years old in a few weeks time, and I was literally conceived in Jerusalem but born in Damascus. So it has gone on for 75 years. For some of those families, they have lived in refugee camps for 75 years. Well, the proposal from the Secretary of State, who was Dean Rusk, was to flood the Qattara Depression. Many people didn’t know about it. My father worked out in the Gulf, and his great friend was the Emir of Qatar. And he told him about it, because there could be communication between an emir and the American government and so on. That you would break through a canal and flood the Qattara. And of course, it’s an unoccupied part of Egypt, which is not to say that all refugees would’ve, but my father called it Moses 2. It’s an interesting night that the Palestinians would have to trek backwards, if you like. He believed ancestrally, Palestinians possibly were the descendants of Jews, but had huge hybridity because so many different peoples have been involved in the holy land. But you’ve got Christian Palestinians, you’ve got Muslim Palestinians, you’ve got Greek, you’ve got Armenian. You can just roll it off your tongue. And they have never existed as a nation.
So that would’ve made it fertile.
Yes, it would’ve made it livable and fertile.
Created a Palestinian state.
Well-
A land.
A land that if you couldn’t, and he thought that if you could negotiate for the West Bank to, and he thought of reciprocity. He said, “Well, look, you’ve got 20% of Israelis are Arab. So why can’t 20% of Palestinians on the West Bank or Gaza be Jewish?” And you have to think in those terms. And Jerusalem had to sort this out. We had to sort it out.
That was so many years ago.
Under a further ruler after Umar, there were Jewish guardians on the Temple Mount. They were exempted from tax, but they actually tended to the Temple Mount. It was only very much later that it was created as what we call a Haram. And it’s funny, the Jewish side of my family actually possibly were involved in breaking that final Haram. I am descended on one side, on the Jewish side, from a Flemish Jewish family who were very influential who helped to create Belgium. They had contact-
People might not know Belgium was as an artificial state created in 1831 after a fight at the opera.
Yeah, right. I don’t think we were in-
Do you know why we would stop? Because people will have questions. So I’ll ask you back, of course. So I think, but this is fascinating, and if only there were more moderates. Let’s see what the questions are. Let’s go.
Q&A and Comments:
Michael, a hundred thousand people did not make a nation, the so-called Palestinians, okay. Israeli’s a startup nation, Allison, okay.
Q: What is the Constantine period coin made of?
A - It’s probably a bronze coin.
Q - Margaret asked, “Before Islam, what was the religion of the Syrians?”
A - Well. They probably worship Baal. It was a fertility goddess.
I believe also in the Pact of Umar that the pagans could be converted, should be converted.
Yes, yes.
Q - But Jews and Christians have a special case because they are the people of the God. This, thank you to you. Have you heard of a Mordechai Kedar, an Israeli scholar of Arab culture whose interview on Al Jazeera went viral? It can be seen on YouTube where he pointed out that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran. He’s also pointed out in other of his lectures on YouTube for Shia Muslims, Jerusalem is not a holy site.
A - Yes. Well, I possibly, well, there was this schism in terms of Islam and Shia. And yes, the Muslim, the holy site for Shia Muslims is in Iraq itself. So it has to do with the death of the prophet’s son-in-law, Ali. And so there was this chism created within Islam. At one time, Shiites became a majority within the Middle Eastern world. And then it receded and they became a minority. So there are all sorts of fluctuations within history.
Julie from Ireland is thanking you. We’ve had Rhoda from Montreal thanking you. This is Michael going back to the origins of the mandate.
Yes, well-
Saying that Jordan had 76%.
Yeah, well, let’s look at the word Jordan. It’s a word created by Umar himself. He decided that anything north of the Lake of Tiberias would be called Urdan. And anything south of Tiberius would be Philistine. And that’s the first time, although Palaestina was a Roman province, yeah, this first time in Arabic that it’s called Philistine.
Thank you, a continuation will be appreciated. Well, I love talking to you. So can I thank you so much? Obviously, it’s a very, very difficult, painful time, but I think dialogue is the answer. It has to be the answer.
And could I just show a final slide that will help to guide people? So if we just close on this and just show the final slide.
Yes, please.
Cause there is an interesting book, but it is also an audio book you can get.
And this is Tom Holland, it doesn’t show. He doesn’t want to show it.
Yes, next slide, please. Yes. So I would recommend, if you try to get, you can be blinded by Arabist, but Tom Holland is actually a historian who’s expert in Persian history. And those original competing empires of the Byzantines and the Persians with Arabia in the middle, it’s a wonderful analysis of those. And therefore, you can get into the history of that particular period. So do read it as a book, or if you don’t, get it as an audio book. It’s wonderful listening as well.
Anyway, thank you so much. Thank you, Sa'ad, for an extraordinary, but also, for everything you do. Please don’t forget that Sa'ad also a fellow of the Yad Vashem and a superb educator about the shoa. And let’s just hope that people of goodwill on both sides will come to their senses. That’s all we can say.
Yes. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye-bye, goodnight, everyone.