One Arab who told the truth about Jerusalem

According to his LinkedIn profile, Iraqi Sufian Samarrai is a “successful and highly regarded TV anchor with wide political knowledge and understanding of geographical and historical issues worldwide with a strong focus on the Middle East.” He studied at Baghdad University and Al-Turath University, also in Baghdad, and now works with Arab News Network and The Baghdad Post in London. His account on “X” is in Arabic and Google translate helps us read what he writes. On Israel’s Jerusalem Day, he posted a photo of the massive turnout of Israelis for prayers at the Western Wall Plaza and wrote a piece about Jerusalem with which many Arabs may take issue (English below the "X" post):

????هل حربنا ضد الله الواحد ونحن لاندري ؟

لماذا نريد أن نزيلهم من الوجود ؟ هذه أرضهم المقدسة هذه ارض الانبياء والرسل هذه الارض التي أمر الله لهم بها لماذا نريد فرض ديننا عليهم ؟ هل تنقصنا أرض، لكي نستحوذ على ٢٠٠ كم طول فقط لا غير ؟ هل لا يوجد لدينا مكان مقدس خاص بنا ؟ هل أمرنا… pic.twitter.com/tMS6swTwm0 — سفيان السامرائي (@SufianSamarrai) June 5, 2024

And here is the translation provided by Google:

Is our war against the one God and we do not know? Why would we want to eliminate them from existence? This is their holy land, this is the land of the prophets and messengers, this is the land that God commanded for them. Why do we want to impose our religion on them? Do we lack land, in order to acquire only 200 km long? Do we not have a sacred place of our own? Did God or the Arab Prophet command us to enter it? Why is this conflict between us and them when they are from the same family to which we belong, a Semitic family from which the prophets emerged? What exactly do we want from them? Let them live in peace and security. They have their religion and we have ours. Isn’t this what God says? Why must we crush their sanctities and impose an imaginary sanctuary on top of their sacred temple? An imaginary sanctuary built more than 60 years after the death of the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace. It was not originally holy, but rather an ordinary mosque built by Abd al-Malik bin Marwan as a competing mosque to the Holy Kaaba for a purely political reason. Its dome was not gilded until after the fall of the extremist fascist Ottoman occupation two decades ago. This is all. The story: Do not be impressed by its golden appearance, and we, the Arabs, are the ones who took care of it Let them live in peace, for we have our sanctities and they have their sanctities. They have their qibla and we have our qibla, and each party lives on its own land The Arabs were never in that land during the time of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. Rather, they were the ones who were before us 3,200 years ago, before Islam, Christianity, and the rest of the religions. Why do we want to crush their religion, which taught the world monotheism and said that God is one and has no partner, and waged an eternal internal and external struggle in order to say God is one, so all paganism and idolatry have shunned it since ancient times? Is our war really against the one God while we do not know it?

How did other Arabs respond?

Riad Hanna wrote:

May God bless you, my brother Sufyan, and I hope everyone like you possesses wisdom and knowledge after research, analysis, study and investigation of the facts with all integrity and objectivity, and accept others with love, tolerance and humility. May God bless you and protect you.

Well, we cannot expect all comments to support the original post, can we? An account referring to itself as an Egyptian group of guerillas fighting “mercenaries, slaves, and the occupying entity” wrote:

1933, almost a hundred years ago. Show it to your loved ones so they can see where the story began from the alliance of the Nazis and the Zionist movement and Adolf Hitler’s help in establishing the State of Israel and occupying the land of Palestine.

Hammoud wrote this comment:

God bears witness, history bears witness, the heavenly religions bear witness, the heavenly books bear witness, the stories of the prophets bear witness, fossils bear witness, trees and stones bear witness, and everyone bears witness that the Jews are the owners of the land, and the Arabs are nothing but invaders and occupiers. They occupied the land of the Jews 1,400 years ago, and any occupation must end.

Saqr bin Abdallah, who only identifies himself as “a shepherd’s son” appears to me to be from Saudi Arabia (because of the header image on his account, the lion of Arabia, and his posts which are anti-Iranian, to put it mildly), wrote:

History was falsified during the Persian era. They burned the correct literature and wrote others. This is what we are suffering from now.

There were two who reposted Sammarai’s post with quotes. This first one I saw reminded me of how Israelis are responded to.

This despicable nasibi calls for coexistence with the Jews who killed the Palestinians, raped their women, and took their land. As for the Shiites, you see him calling for fighting them, excommunicating them, and demolishing the Shiite sanctities. I swear to God, the most impure human beings are the Nawasib Sunnis.

And then there was this one:

You were creative, enlightened, and radiant, my honorable teacher.

Reflecting on this….

It is good to see a debate among Arabs. But not being Arab, I do not know if those who support Jewish sovereignty are respectable voices we should take note of or if they are some kind of “Jewish Voice of Peace.” Do you understand what I mean? However, judging only by the few responses to Sufian Samarrai, both those supporting him and those denigrating him, I tend to think we can consider him as a legitimate commentator. May there be more like him. May someone like him in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in Judea-Samaria come out openly and voice such truths. Feature Image is a screenshot of Sufian Samarrai's "X" profile page.