How two tribes’ mutual loathing in East Asia centuries ago bears on the Israel-Gaza war

900 years ago in East Asia, the Jurchen and Mongol tribes were bitter enemies. When war inevitably came, one side’s leaders were wiped out, but at great cost

As with the ‘blood feud’ between Israelis and Palestinians, frequent short clashes had presaged wider conflict. Finding a way to de-escalate is the hard part

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A battle between the Mongol invaders and Jurchen defenders of China’s Jin dynasty in 1211, as depicted in a miniature from the 15th century Jami’ al-tawarikh (Universal History). Photo: Getty Images)

Having lived his whole life in the modern cities of Singapore and Hong Kong, Wee Kek Koon has an inexplicable fascination with the past.

Published: 7:45am, 6 Nov 2023

It was a Wednesday afternoon in Central Synagogue, on Lexington Avenue in New York. Four Jewish American ladies, two Israelis living in New Jersey, an exchange student from India, and us, a couple of tourists from Southeast Asia, were taken around the resplendent temple, a designated National Historic Landmark.

Our eloquent guide interspersed her descriptions of the synagogue’s history and architecture with fascinating stories. In one of her anecdotes, a nearby mosque had been destroyed by fire. Its congregants had nowhere to go.

Central Synagogue quickly opened up its activity centre to the affected Muslims, offering them a space to worship and pray until they could find a permanent place.

Inside the Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue in New York, which once offered Muslims whose nearby mosque had been destroyed by fire a place to worship. Photo: Wee Kek Koon

It was a beautiful story of human kindness in spite of religion.

Ten days after our visit to Central Synagogue, Hamas attacked Israel. What followed was human savagery at its worst, during the surprise attack launched by Hamas, and in the subsequent rounds of retaliatory strikes and counterstrikes by both sides.

At the time of writing, the Israeli death toll is 1,400. Over 8,000 Palestinians are dead, however, and the entire Palestinian population in Gaza is in desperate need of humanitarian supplies.

Like an ancient blood feud with both enemies nursing their own suffering and mythologies, the Israel-Palestine conflict is so inextricable, with so many lives lost on both sides over the years, that any attempt at ascribing original blame is quite impossible, and no longer serves any practical purpose.