The Establishment of Israel

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

Dr. Isaac Asimov said, in “Asimov Laughs Again: More Than 700 Jokes, Limericks and Anecdotes”, “I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have.  Well, I don’t travel.  I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel.  I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic; I was not. 

I said, ‘What are we doing?  We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea.  The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled.’  I was laughed at, but I was right.  I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2,000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there.  History moves on and you can’t really turn it back.”