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Author Topic:   Israel (& Judah) in history and tradition.
Nimrod
Member (Idle past 4916 days)
Posts: 277
Joined: 06-22-2006


Message 1 of 29 (440186)
12-11-2007 7:19 PM


I would like a topic (in the Bible Accuracy forum)which gives the pro-Bible side an opportunity to present historical evidence for Israel in the archaeological , textual , and hisorical records avaliable which supports the notion that the Israelite Monarchy period is historical.
This covers the history outlined from the book of 1 Samuel till II Kings/Chronicles.The typical dates are 1042BCE till 587 BCE.
Archaeological evidence can come from discoveries in Palestine including excavation results. (the Bible-skeptics can present surveys, excavations, and recent chronological schemes which disprove the claim that there could have been a significant kingdom in a said period)
Historical evidence can come from extant traditions by non-Israelite peoples.
Textual evidence can come from historical references to "Israel" , or the "house of Y (where Y equals said dynasty name which equals Biblical ruling houses).
Evidence from the "tradition" sector will be weak by nature, but is mainly used a a yead-stick for which to measure the historical and archaeological results. (the Bible can be considered a "tradition" I suppose)
NOTE: I ask the pro-Bible side to please keep in mind the difference between Israel and Judah, between the United Monarchy and the Divided Monarchy, between extant sources and non-extant sources, between late traditions and historical sources archaeologically current to the actual events the Bible describes.
I also ask that "evidence" from archaeology & history be used in a measured way (ie. dont reach too broad of conclusions when the presented piece of *evidence* doesnt demand such disproportional "support for the exact details the Bible describes" for *its* respected period)
(example: There Merenptah reference doesnt indicate "Israel" as holding ANY land at-all , so its cant be used as evidence that later Israel controlled the entire land of Palestine- though it DOES indeed have major historical value, but it's value must be used in a measured way)
END NOTE

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 Message 3 by jar, posted 12-16-2007 1:03 PM Nimrod has replied
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AdminPhat
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Message 2 of 29 (441099)
12-16-2007 12:34 PM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 3 of 29 (441113)
12-16-2007 1:03 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Nimrod
12-11-2007 7:19 PM


the United Monarchy and the Divided Monarchy
I often think it is important to remember that even if there was a United Monarchy, it was far more like England and Scotland under James I & VI then one truly united nation. For almost all of Biblical History the Hebrews were either divided into independent and often fighting clans or two separate and often fighting Nations. There seems to be little to indicate that at anytime they did not still identify themselves as either Northern Israelis or Southern Jews. Much as under James I & VI (and even more under James VII), if you went to London folk would say they were English however if you traveled to Edinburgh they would say they were Scots.

Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

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 Message 1 by Nimrod, posted 12-11-2007 7:19 PM Nimrod has replied

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Nimrod
Member (Idle past 4916 days)
Posts: 277
Joined: 06-22-2006


Message 4 of 29 (441285)
12-16-2007 11:34 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by jar
12-16-2007 1:03 PM


A very sound conclusion.
And that doesnt just apply to the 2 Israelite kingdoms.
Remember that there were constant wars with many peoples-especially the coastal Philistines?
And even by the 950's BCE , Gezer was still held by the Canaanites(among others).Even more interesting is that Gezer was actually in-between Philistia and much of Judea (or Benjamin or some other tribe, I forget exactly), so it is doubtful the Israelites were entirely secure and ever in complete control of Philistia during the United Monarchy of c1042-925 (...if there even was one).
Related to those issues are whether the splendor of Solomon's kingdom as described in the Bible was exaggerated.
Let me quote the great H.G. Well's in a 1942 edition (he updated it according to the latest discoveries) of a 1921 book
H.G. Wells
Pocket History of the World
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE EARLY HITORY OF THE JEWS
....
They were settled in Judea long before 1000 B.C. , and their capital city after that time was Jerusalem.
....
... the Hebrew Bible.This literatue appears in history in the fourth or fifth century B.C.
Probably this literature was first put together in Babylon.
....
Before that time the Jews do not seem to have been a very civilized or united people.
....
And after a long sojourn in Egypt and after forty years of wandering ... invaded the land of Canaan.... They may have done this somwhere between 1600 B.C. and 1300 B.C.; there are no Egyptian records of Moses nor of Canaan at this time to help out the story.But at any rate they did not succeed in conquering any more than the hilly backgrounds of the promised land. .... For many generations the children of Abraham remained an obscure people of the hilly back country engaged in incessant bickering with the Philistines and with the kindred tribes about them, the Moabites , the Midianites , and so forth.The... Book of Judges a record of their strugges and disasters during this period.For very largely it is a record of disasters and failures frankly told.
For most of this period the Hebrews were ruled, so far as there was any rule among them, by priestly judges selected by elders of the peple, but at last, ... towards 1000 B.C., they choose themselves a king.... But Sauls leading was no great improvment .... he perished under the hail of Philistine rrows ... his body was nailed to the walls of Beth-shan.
His successor David was more successful.......
And Solomon achived a prosperity and magnificence un-precedented in the experience of his people.He was even given a daughter of Pharaoh in marriage.
But it is well to keep the proportion of things in mind.At the climax of his glories Solomon was only a little sub-ordinate king in a little city.His power was so transitory that within a few years of his death Shishak, the first Pharaoh of the twenty-second dynasty, had taken Jerusalem and looted most of its splendors.The account of Solomon's magnificence given in the Books of Kings and Chronicles is questioned by many critics.They say it was added to and exaggerated by the patriotic pride of later writers.But the Bible account read carefully is not so overwhelming as it appears at the first reading.Solomon's temple, if one works out the measurements , would go inside a small suburban church, and his fourteen hundred chariots cease to impress us when we learn from an Assyrian monument that his successor Ahab sent a contingent of 2,000 to the Assyrian army.It is also plainly manifest from the Bible narrative that Solomon spent himself in display an overtaxed and overworked his people.At his death the northern part of his kingdom broke off from Jerusalem and became the indepedent kingdom of Israel.Jerusalem remained the capital city of Judah.
The prosperity ... short-lived. Egypt grew strong again.The history ... becomes a history of two little states ground between, first, Syria , then Assyria and then Babylon to the north and Egypt to the south.It is a tale of barbaric kings ruling a barbaric people.In 721 B.C. the kingdom of Israel was swept away .... and its people utterly lost to history.Judah struggled on.... There may be details open to criticism in the Bible ... from the days of the Judges onward, but on the whole it is evidently a true story which squares with all that has been learned in the excavation of Egypt and Assyria and Babylon during the past century.
It was in Babylon that the Hebrew people got their history together and evolved their tradition..... They had learned civilization.
Interesting observations.
Up till the last 15 years, this was the general view.
Now archaeological evidence (or lack) of Jerusalem during the early monarchy has caused a serious double-look at the reliability of the Judah history not to mention the United Monarchy.
Also;
From the territory of what would later become the northern kingdom of Israel , there has also been questions asked of the early dating ( 10th century) of structures built. Some feel an accurate archaeological chronology should place some cities "Israelite" phase (to distinguish from the previous period of Canaanite occupation, plus abandonment) around the 9th century which would falsify the early Israelite splendor (and extent) of Solomons kingdom if it even extended out from Jerusalem at all.
(Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer being particular area's of dispute)
The only responce I will present will be on the Judah/Jerusalem end and it will be indirect evidence.
Ancient Palestine
A Historical introduction
Gosta Ahlstrom
Some periods ... difficult ... because of the paucity of both textual and archaeological material.For parts of Palestine such a period is the Late Bronze Age.For instance, there are many archaeological remains in the valleys and on the coast, but becase the LB age was a time of very few settlements in the central hills , the archaeological picture will be very spotty.However, the tablets frm Tell el-Amarna contain the corresondence between the Pharaoh an his Syro-Palestinian vassals during the fourteenth century B.C.E. The tablets, written in Akkadian, talk about a number of city states in the lowlands and the valleys , but only about a very few in the central hills, namely Shecem and Jerusalem, and Pehel (Pella) in the foothills of Jordan.... How much history do these texts relate? A literary analysis shows a formulaic language with common ideas, ... defence for a city-kings actions ... problems with neighboring city-states , robbers , and so on. .... There is no corroborative material that can be used , nor is there any information about the chain of events of the context that led to the writing beside what the letters mention.Thus, a history cannot really be written frm these texts, but the letters are useful for filling in some gaps in the political and demographic picture of this period.
Indeed.
It, the textual record, shows that the central hill-country of Judah and Israel (Shechem was in the later northern kingdom's territory) had in c1350 BCE surviving Canaanite cities which happen to be the exact two that the Bible describes as held by Canaanites post Conquest and through the Judges period-including Jerusalem!
The archaeological record desnt show much for Jerusalem during the period however.It is hard to excavate there due to major-population.
This is indirect evidence that can be used to support the United Monarchy.But it isnt decisive at all if one wants to defend every last detail of the United Monarchy.It only shows that there a a core, even if very thin, of truth to the historical background.
However, Ahlstrom died over 15 years ago; before the mass of recent archaeological work began to be digested and looked at. During Ahlstroms time, the existence of a United Monarchy ruled by David and Solomon was taken as a historical fact
by most (but not all) historians.It began to be more questioned among secular-historians as time went on though.
Enter the last 10-15 years.
Now many (more) questions are being asked.
Im glad they are because nothing should be taken for granted.
Edited by Nimrod, : No reason given.
Edited by Nimrod, : No reason given.
Edited by Nimrod, : No reason given.

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IamJoseph
Member (Idle past 3669 days)
Posts: 2822
Joined: 06-30-2007


Message 5 of 29 (441311)
12-17-2007 1:57 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Nimrod
12-11-2007 7:19 PM


quote:
Archaeological evidence can come from discoveries in Palestine including excavation results.
There was no PALESTINE at this time, a name appearing only in the 1st C CE and instigated by Rome. Its usage for ancient history is only a false propaganda seeking to deligitimise Israel's history. Israel was a sovereign state from Joshua to 70 CE, with a break of 70 years during the babylon Invasion; some parts of Canaan were not incorporated will 150 years later, due to the incursions of the original philistines, as recorded in the OT and book of Joshua.
Better you evidence any Arab claims to later history, and the hijacking of the name 'PALESTINIAN', than of Israel - this is the most evidenced, recorded and known history of all nations. Most of today's arab states never existed pre-Briton, namely some 150 years ago; the Arab race never existed pre-500 BCE. I have posted a timeline map in this forum.
The divisions seen in Judea and Samaria [today's 'west bank' name is only a few decades old], is a commonplace syndrome in all nations. The country was divided into Judea and Israel well after King David's unification of the land, but the entire land was a sovereign Jewish entity. It is a domestic issue only.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Nimrod, posted 12-11-2007 7:19 PM Nimrod has replied

Replies to this message:
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Nimrod
Member (Idle past 4916 days)
Posts: 277
Joined: 06-22-2006


Message 6 of 29 (441315)
12-17-2007 2:17 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by IamJoseph
12-17-2007 1:57 AM


You managed to provide NO evidence what-so-ever!
Great job!
Is the fact that you present no evidence for your claims because there is no evidence or because you simply cant do the research to find any evidence?

This message is a reply to:
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IamJoseph
Member (Idle past 3669 days)
Posts: 2822
Joined: 06-30-2007


Message 7 of 29 (441320)
12-17-2007 3:11 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Nimrod
12-17-2007 2:17 AM


Re: You managed to provide NO evidence what-so-ever!
I did provide evidence. That is what an historical timeline does: and it shows no arabs pre-500 BCE; no Palestine pre-70 CE; no muslim Palestinians pre-60's.
This is a copious doc and not worth posting in every thread. It is you who provided no evidence that Jews are the answers of muslim palestinians, negating a peoples' entire history as a fact w/o any proof.
Edited by IamJoseph, : No reason given.

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Replies to this message:
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Nimrod
Member (Idle past 4916 days)
Posts: 277
Joined: 06-22-2006


Message 8 of 29 (441410)
12-17-2007 2:28 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by IamJoseph
12-17-2007 3:11 AM


Listen closely.
Palestine is a neutral term for the land during all periods of history.
*ALL* scholars use the term.
The reason it isnt called "Israel" in say 2000 BCE is because it would be confusing since the Israelites were not in the land till much later.
Palestine is simply the name of the land and it has nothing to do with whether somebody is Arab, European , Israelite,Canaanite, etc.
If you cant understand that, then please stay out of topics that cover historical proofs for the land of Palestine during a said period. (and the issue here centers around the "Israelite" phase of Palestinian history- got any *evidence* for it?)
AGAIN.
This thread is about Israelites and it covers Israelite history.
And it doesnt even have to do with beliefs.I dont care if somebody is the most brain-dead fundamentalist the world has ever seen.I only care about historical evidence surrounding the *ANCIENT* Israelites.
I dont care if you are an athiest.
I care what your contribution is to the hisorical details. (see OP- Opening Post)
If you dont understand the basics of history then stay out.And the most basic of understandings is knowing that the neutral term of "Palestine" is a conventional scholarly term that all experts use.If you are so shocked by the term, then it proves you havnt got 2 pages of historical study under your belt.
So, I will repeat; anybody who is shocked by the use of "Palestine" as a neutral term for the land during any period (not specific to the actual ruling ethnic group during whatever period) should stop posting and spend their time reading historical works.
Once you do a little learning, then the ignorant obsession over small things will vanish.Small things only impress small minds.
(and a MOD told me they will take action to limit disruption over the "Palestine" usage once this was explained)

Every Good Man Is Free
XII.(75) Morever Palestine and Syria too are not barren of exemplary wisdom and virtue, which conuntries no slight portion of that most populous nation of the Jews inhabits.
-Philo of Alexandria-
(c30BCE to c40 CE)

This message is a reply to:
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Nimrod
Member (Idle past 4916 days)
Posts: 277
Joined: 06-22-2006


Message 9 of 29 (441413)
12-17-2007 2:38 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Nimrod
12-17-2007 2:28 PM


I'll Repeat.
The 2500 (or more) year old usage of "Palestine" as the name of the land is off-limits for debate in this thread(and perhaps others where the debate does not belong).
If people want to create a time-machine and go back and erase the history of our planet & the fact that this term was used for the land longer than any other term, then fine.
But, short of that, I ask that people simply respect the history of our planet and the historical reality it has created.
The debate over the use of "Palestine" for the land during all of western recorded history (starting with Herodotus) is not welcome in this thread. Scholarship cannot be erased due to post-1800's (dispensationalist) fantasies.
Neither is a debate over whether 2 plus 2 equals 4.
History books wont be burned if I have *anything* to do with it.
Scholarship will not be censored even if it is politically-incorrect.
And FINALLY it wont be debated in this thread regardless.
"Palestine" as a neutral term for the land is NOT up for debate.
Edited by Nimrod, : No reason given.

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IamJoseph
Member (Idle past 3669 days)
Posts: 2822
Joined: 06-30-2007


Message 10 of 29 (441492)
12-17-2007 8:50 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Nimrod
12-17-2007 2:28 PM


Re: Listen closely.
quote:
Palestine is a neutral term for the land during all periods of history.
*ALL* scholars use the term.
BS! Even if anyone speaks retrospectively, using today's descriptions of Palestine, it is incorrect. And ALL arab muslims know this fact - they just pretend and dstort - or worse. This region was a sovereign jewish state called Judea till 70 CE. Fact. Also, there was a Jewish temple here, and some people dumped a mosque atop of it: thus that temple becomes a zionist myth. Very islamist and Arabesque history.
quote:
Every Good Man Is Free
XII.(75) Morever Palestine and Syria too are not barren of exemplary wisdom and virtue, which conuntries no slight portion of that most populous nation of the Jews inhabits.
-Philo of Alexandria-
(c30BCE to c40 CE)
This is wrongly/decpetively quoted: The date at the bottom cannot be right, unless the entire Roman-Jewish war is a fiction. In this war, 200,000 pre-islamic 'arab' mercenaries were recruited [Josephus Documents; with cross-reference Roman archives]. This date is NOT 30 - 40 CE, and in fact begins at 70CE. There was no Palestine or Palestinians before 70 CE. It is also why Jesus could never have been a Palestinian - unless his death is given incorrectly as 31 CE.
In this portion of history, Islamic views are not legitimate: there was no arabic writings yet for some 600 years, and no archives exist of any Islamic views on this topic. Muslims tout this bogus version of history for a cover up to numerous other falsehoods - they will become exposed for sustaining this revisionist history, as well as those who condone it via silence.
TO COVER ONE LIE - A 1000 TRUTHS MUST BE COVERED.
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IamJoseph
Member (Idle past 3669 days)
Posts: 2822
Joined: 06-30-2007


Message 11 of 29 (441495)
12-17-2007 9:01 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Nimrod
12-17-2007 2:38 PM


Re: I'll Repeat.
quote:
The 2500 (or more) year old usage of "Palestine" as the name of the land is off-limits for debate in this thread(and perhaps others where the debate does not belong).
There is no 2500 usage of this name. The Philistines are first mentioned in the OT; the land became Palestine in 70CE and applied exclusively to Jews. The arab muslims hated this name exactly as they do Zionists today - still they hijacked this as a Political tool to prop up all other falsehoods claimed by them - eg, the Jews converted to Islam and are now muslim Palestinians [sic].
That is why we are never shown any evidence pre-1960 of muslims associating themselves to this name, not a relic suggesting what they claim exists, while all discoveries in Israel expose only the antithesis of the claims made here.
It is an intentional and purposeful lie subsequent to covering and justifying a host of other falsities - it is not a confusion, being presented. It ain't history.
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bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4190 days)
Posts: 2347
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2007


Message 12 of 29 (441539)
12-18-2007 12:28 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Nimrod
12-17-2007 2:28 PM


Re: Listen closely.
Palestine is a neutral term for the land during all periods of history.
That is what most of us, save certain individuals, have basically been saying. I would still like to know where IAJ gets his info.
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Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other

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IamJoseph
Member (Idle past 3669 days)
Posts: 2822
Joined: 06-30-2007


Message 13 of 29 (441557)
12-18-2007 3:44 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by bluescat48
12-18-2007 12:28 AM


Re: Listen closely.
quote:
That is what most of us, save certain individuals, have basically been saying. I would still like to know where IAJ gets his info.
The name Palestine was applied by Rome upon Judea:
quote:
http://www.palestinefacts.org/...y_palestine_name_origin.php
PALESTINE FACTS
EARLY HISTORY
PALESTINE ORIGIN
Where did the name Palestine come from?
In AD 135, after putting down the Bar Kochba revolt, the second major Jewish revolt against Rome, the Emperor Hadrian wanted to blot out the name of the Roman "Provincia Judaea" and so renamed it "Provincia Syria Palaestina", the Latin version of the Greek name and the first use of the name as an administrative unit. The name "Provincia Syria Palaestina" was later shortened to Palaestina, from which the modern, anglicized "Palestine" is derived.
That the early greeks referred to the entire east coast as "the Philistine Syria" referred to another, totally unrelated factor, namely the greeks were not referring this name to Judea but to the original Philistines from the Agean sea, which place the greeks also shared an origin with. Both the greeks and the original philistines being non-semitic peoples, and the philistines settled along the east coast between Egypt and syria - first recorded in the OT, and the reason the Israelites took the long route to Canaan and not the coastal one. This is unrelated to today's Palestine, which applied exclusively to the Jewish homeland, and the source of this is by the Roman Emperor Hardian - well after the Philistines were vanquished. It is thus presented as a total distortion by Nimrod, not that there is any confusion of it by Arab muslims:
quote:
http://www.palestinefacts.org/...y_palestine_name_origin.php
From the fifth century BC, following the historian Herodotus, Greeks called the eastern coast of the Mediterranean "the Philistine Syria" using the Greek language form of the name.
The issue of Muslim Palestinians is 1960 with Arafat. Prior to this time, this name was referred to Jews only.
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IamJoseph
Member (Idle past 3669 days)
Posts: 2822
Joined: 06-30-2007


Message 14 of 29 (441558)
12-18-2007 3:55 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by bluescat48
12-18-2007 12:28 AM


Re: Listen closely.
More:
quote:
http://www.palestinefacts.org/...y_palestine_name_origin.php
The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Roman "Palaestina". Quoting Golda Meir:
The British chose to call the land they mandated Palestine, and the Arabs picked it up as their nation's supposed ancient name, though they couldn't even pronounce it correctly and turned it into Falastin a fictional entity. [In an article by Sarah Honig, Jerusalem Post, November 25, 1995]
More:
quote:
Account Suspended
THE HISTORY AND MEANING OF
"PALESTINE" AND "PALESTINIAN"
"There is no such thing as a Palestinian Arab nation . . . Palestine is a name the Romans gave to Eretz Yisrael with the express purpose of infuriating the Jews . . . Why should we use the spiteful name meant to humiliate us?
"The British chose to call the land they mandated Palestine, and the Arabs picked it up as their nation's supposed ancient name, though they couldn't even pronounce it correctly and turned it into Falastin a fictional entity."
-- Golda Meir
"From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries . . . ."
-- Professor Bernard Lewis
Princeton University
"Palestine has never existed . . . as an autonomous entity. There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.
"Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of one percent of the land mass. But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today . . . No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough."
-- Joseph Farah, Arab-American journalist
"Myths of the Middle East"
Talk and writing about Israel and the Middle East feature the nouns "Palestine" and Palestinian", and the phrases "Palestinian territory" and even "Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory". All too often, these terms are used without regard to their historical or geographical meaning, a habit that creates illusions rather than clarifies facts.
WHAT DOES "PALESTINE" MEAN?
It has never been the name of a nation or state. It is a geographical term, used to designate the region at those times in history when there is no nation or state there.
The word itself derives from "Peleshet", a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine". The name came into use in the thirteenth century BCE, for the "Sea Peoples" who migrated from the region of the Aegean Sea and the Greek Islands and settled on the southern coast of the land of Canaan. There they established five independent city-states (including Gaza) on a narrow strip of land known as Philistia. The Greeks and Romans called it "Palastina".
The Philistines were not Arabs, they were not Semites . They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs. The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Greco-Roman "Palastina" derived from Peleshet.
HOW DID THE LAND OF ISRAEL BECOME "PALESTINE"?
In the First Century CE, the Romans crushed the independent kingdom of Judea. After the failed rebellion of Bar Kokhba in the Second Century CE, the Roman Emperor Hadrian determined to wipe out the identity of Israel-Judah-Judea. Therefore, he took the name Palastina and imposed it on all the Land of Israel. At the same time, he changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina.
The Romans killed many Jews and sold many more in slavery. Some of those who survived still alive and free left the devastated country, but there was never a complete abandonment of the Land. There was never a time when there were not Jews and Jewish communities, though the size and conditions of those communities fluctuated greatly.
THE HISTORY OF PALESTINE
Thousands of years before the Romans invented "Palastina" the land had been known as "Canaan". The Canaanites had many tiny city-states, each one at times independent and at times a vassal of an Egyptian or Hittite king. The Canaanites never united into a state.
After the Exodus from Egypt probably in the Thirteenth Century BCE but perhaps earlier -- , the Children of Israel settled in the land of Canaan. There they formed first a tribal confederation, and then the biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the post-biblical Kingdom of Judea.
From the beginning of history to this day, Israel-Judah-Judea has the only united, independent, sovereign nation-state that ever existed in "Palestine" west of the Jordan River. (In biblical times, Ammon, Moab and Edom as well as Israel had land east of the Jordan, but they disappeared in antiquity and no other nation took their place until the British invented Trans-Jordan in the 1920s.)
After the Roman conquest of Judea, "Palastina" became a province of the pagan Roman Empire and then of the Christian Byzantine Empire, and very briefly of the Zoroastrian Persian Empire. In 638 CE, an Arab-Muslim Caliph took Palastina away from the Byzantine Empire and made it part of an Arab-Muslim Empire. The Arabs, who had no name of their own for this region, adopted the Greco-Roman name Palastina, that they pronounced "Falastin".
In that period, much of the mixed population of Palastina converted to Islam and adopted the Arabic language. They were subjects of a distant Caliph who ruled from his capital, that was first in Damascus and later in Baghdad. They did not become a nation or an independent state, or develop a distinct society or culture.
In 1099, Christian Crusaders from Europe conquered Palastina-Falastin. After 1099, it was never again under Arab rule. The Christian Crusader kingdom was politically independent, but never developed a national identity. It remained a military outpost of Christian Europe, and lasted less than 100 years. Thereafter, Palestine was joined to Syria as a subject province first of the Mameluks, ethnically mixed slave-warriors whose center was in Egypt, and then of the Ottoman Turks, whose capital was in Istanbul.
During the First World War, the British took Palestine from the Ottoman Turks. At the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and among its subject provinces "Palestine" was assigned to the British, to govern temporarily as a mandate from the League of Nations.
THE JEWISH NATIONAL HOME
Travellers to Palestine from the Western world left records of what they saw there. The theme throughout their reports is dismal: The land was empty, neglected, abandoned, desolate, fallen into ruins.
"Nothing there [Jerusalem] to be seen but a little of the old walls which is yet remaining
and all the rest is grass, moss and weeds."
-- English pilgrim in 1590
"The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need
is of a body of population"
-- British consul in 1857
"There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent [valley of Jezreel] -- not for 30 miles in either direction . . . . One may ride 10 miles hereabouts and not see 10 human beings.
"For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee . . . Nazareth is forlorn . . . Jericho lies a moldering ruin . . . Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation . . . untenanted by any living creature . . . .
"A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds . . a silent, mournful expanse . . . a desolation . . . . We never saw a human being on the whole route . . . . Hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country . . . .
"Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes . . . desolate and unlovely . . . ."
-- Mark Twain
The Innocents Abroad, 1867
The restoration of the "desolate and unlovely" land began in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century with the first Jewish pioneers. Their labors created newer and better conditions and opportunities, which in turn attracted migrants from many parts of the Middle East, both Arabs and others.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917, confirmed by the League of Nations Mandate, commited the British Government to the principle that "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish National Home, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object. . . . " It was specified both that this area be open to "close Jewish settlement" and that the personal rights of all inhabitants already in the country be preserved and protected.
Mandate Palestine originally included all of what is now Jordan, as well as all of what is now Israel, and the territories between them. However, when Great Britain's protege Emir Abdullah was forced to leave the ancestral Hashemite domain in Arabia, the British created a realm for him that included all of Mandate Palestine east of the Jordan River. There was no traditional or historic Arab name for this land, so it was called after the river: first Trans-Jordan and later Jordan.
By this political act, that violated the conditions of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, the British cut more than 75 percent out of the Jewish National Home. No Jew has ever been permitted to reside in Trans-Jordan/Jordan.
Less than 25 percent then remained of Mandate Palestine, and even in this remnant, the British violated the Balfour and Mandate requirements for a "Jewish National Home" and for "close Jewish settlement". They progressively restricted where Jews could buy land, where they could live, build, farm or work.
After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel was finally able to settle some small part of those lands from which the Jews had been debarred by the British. Successive British governments regularly condemn their settlement as "illegal". In truth, it was the British who had acted illegally in banning Jews from these parts of the Jewish National Home.
WHO IS A PALESTINIAN?
During the period of the Mandate, it was the Jewish population that was known as "Palestinians", including those who served in the British Army in World War II.
British policy was to curtail their numbers and progressively limit Jewish immigration. By 1939, the White Paper virtually put an end to admission of Jews to Palestine. This policy was imposed the most stringently at the very time this Home was most desperately needed -- after the rise of Nazi power in Europe. Jews who might have developed the empty lands of Palestine and left progeny there, instead died in the gas chambers of Europe or in the seas they were trying to cross to the Promised Land.
At the same time that the British slammed the gates on Jews, they permitted or ignored massive illegal immigration into Western Palestine from Arab countries Jordan, Syria, Egypt, North Africa.
In 1939, Winston Churchill noted that "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied . . . ." Exact population statistics may be problematic, but it seems that by 1947 the number of Arabs west of the Jordan River was approximately triple of what it had been in 1900.
The current myth is that these Arabs were long established in Palestine, until the Jews came and "displaced" them. The fact is, that recent Arab immigration into Palestine "displaced" the Jews. That the massive increase in Arab population was very recent is attested by the ruling of the United Nations: That any Arab who had lived in Palestine for two years and then left in 1948 qualifies as a "Palestinian refugees".
Casual use of population statistics for Jews and Arabs in Palestine rarely consider how the proportions came to be. One factor was the British policy of keeping out Jews while bringing in Arabs. Another factor was the violence used to kill or drive out Jews even where they had been long established.
For one example: The Jewish connection with Hebron goes back to Abraham, and there has been an Israelite/Jewish community there since Joshua long before it was King David's first capital. In 1929, Arab rioters -- with the passive consent of the British -- murdered or drove out the entire ancient Jewish community.
For another example: In 1948, Trans-Jordan seized much of Judea and Samaria (which they called The West Bank) and East Jerusalem and the Old City. They killed or drove out every Jew.
It is now often proposed as a principle of international law and morality that all places that the British and the Arabs rendered Judenrein must forever remain so. In contrast, Israel, eventually allotted 17 percent of Mandate Palestine, had to absorb a large and growing population of Arab citizens.
FROM PALESTINE BACK TO ISRAEL AGAIN
What was to become of "Palestine" after the Mandate? This question was taken up by various British and international commissions and other bodies, culminating with the United Nations in 1947. During the various deliberations, Arab officials, spokesmen and writers expressed their views on "Palestine".
"There is no such country as Palestine. 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented. . . . Our country was for centuries part of Syria. 'Palestine' is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it."
-- Local Arab leader
to British Peel Commission, 1937
"There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not."
-- Professor Philip Hitti, Arab historian
to Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, 1946
"It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."
-- delegate of Saudi Arabia
United Nations Security Council, 1956
By 1948, the Arabs had still not yet discovered their ancient nation of Falastin . When they were offered half of Palestine west of the Jordan River for a state, the offer was violently rejected. Six Arab states launched a war of annihilation against the nascent State of Israel. Their purpose was not to establish an independent Falastin. Their aim was to partition western Palestine amongst themselves.
They did not succeed in killing Israel, but Trans-Jordan succeeded in taking Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and East Jerusalem, killing or driving out all the Jews who had lived in those places, and banning Jews of all nations from Jewish holy places. Egypt succeeded in taking the Gaza Strip. These two Arab states held these lands until 1967. Then they launched another war of annihilation against Israel, and in consequence lost the lands they had taken by war in 1948.
During those 19 years, 1948-1967, Jordan and Egypt never offered to surrendar those lands to make up an independent state of Falastin. The "Palestinians" never sought it. Nobody in the world ever suggested it, much less demanded it.
In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded, with a charter that proclaimed its sole purpose to be the destruction of Israel. To that end it helped to precipitate the Arab attack on Israel in 1967.
The outcome of that attack then inspired a revision of public rhetoric. As propaganda, it sounds better to speak of the liberation of Falastin than of the destruction of Israel. Much of the world, governments and media and public opinion, accept virtually without question or serious analysis the new-sprung myth of an Arab nation of Falastin, whose territory is unlawfully occupied by the Jews.
Since the end of World War I, the Arabs of the Middle East and North Africa have been given independent states in 99.5 percent of the land they demanded.
Lord Balfour himself expressed a doomed hope that out of the vast territories bestowed upon the Arabs, they "would not begrudge" the Jews their "little notch".
END
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by bluescat48, posted 12-18-2007 12:28 AM bluescat48 has not replied

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 Message 15 by Lithodid-Man, posted 12-18-2007 4:52 AM IamJoseph has replied

  
Lithodid-Man
Member (Idle past 2931 days)
Posts: 504
From: Juneau, Alaska, USA
Joined: 03-22-2004


Message 15 of 29 (441563)
12-18-2007 4:52 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by IamJoseph
12-18-2007 3:55 AM


Re: Listen closely.
Nicely cut and pasted from here:
http://christianactionforisrael.org/...istory_palestine.html
I hope to hell others recognize how far down your credibility lies. I googled the last entire half of your post, enclosed with quotes, and got the link above. The rest was there as well. You like stole the entire thing word for word. You are okay with that? How many commandments do you feel like breaking at a time?
ABE: I clicked on your second link and found again the word for word discourse you wrote. I take it you mean everything after that is the quote and as such I apologize. I am sorry for this.
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Edited by Lithodid-Man, : Followed IaJ's link and realized he may not have been plagirizing
Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

"I have seen so far because I have stood on the bloated corpses of my competitors" - Dr Burgess Bowder

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by IamJoseph, posted 12-18-2007 3:55 AM IamJoseph has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 16 by IamJoseph, posted 12-18-2007 5:11 AM Lithodid-Man has replied

  
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