Originally Posted by kirklancaster
It is impossible in one post to examine in any great detail this very complex issue, but I am nonetheless compelled to address what I regard as certain anti-Israeli pro-Palestinian fallacies, even if such an undertaking results in several individual posts – notwithstanding the inevitable counter responses which I welcome.
I feel the best place to start is in clearing up some of the untruths regarding the Israeli's legitimate rights to be living in the State of Israel and the fallacies concerning the ‘State of Palestine’ and the actual ‘Palestinians’ themselves.
Leaving aside ‘Biblical’ evidence – for obvious reasons – there is real, if not conclusive evidence, that Jews have existed on the land which is now the State of Israel for over 3000 years, whilst at the same time it is beyond argument that ‘Palestinians’ per se have never truly historically existed and NOWHERE in pre 1960’s history has there ever been a State of Palestine.
The Merneptah Victory Stele bears an inscription by Egyptian King Meneptah who reigned from 1213 to 1203 BC and was discovered by Petrie in 1896 at Thebes. The inscription largely records Merneptah's victory over the Libyans, but also mentions another military campaign in Canaan (then part of Egypt's conquests and where modern day Israel is now situated),in which Merneptah says he defeated Ashkalon, Gezer, Yanoam and Israel.
Another ‘stele’ discovered in 1868 was inscribed by King Mesha of Moab (now Jordan) and dates to 840 BC. The inscriptions on this stele mentions how the Moabites were “subjugated’ to Israel”, and also mentions the Israelite God YAHWEH and makes the first non-Biblical reference to King David and The House of David.
Yet another ancient stele - the Tel Dan Stele – which dates to around 900 BC - was discovered in 1993–94 during a dig at Tel Dan in Northern Israel, and,its inscription in Aramaic makes reference to victories by an unknown King (but attributed to a Damascan King Hazael) over “the king of Israel and his ally the king of the "House of David".
There is other non-Biblical archaeological evidence - inscriptions on broken pottery etc - which not only places Israelis (Jews) living in Israel (Canaan) for 500 years between 3200 to 2700 years ago, but also confirms the Judaic God YAHWEH and the Biblical King David.
But what of the Palestinian case?
In stark contrast to the evidence for the Jews living in and ruling over Israel going back over 3000 years, there has never been a country called Palestine, nor was there ever a nation of people called ‘Palestinians’ until after 1964, and until this time, ‘Palestinians’ were merely ‘Arabs’, and even referred to themselves as ‘Arabs’.
In the year 135 AD, the Roman emperor Hadrian, crushed yet another Jewish rebellion and banished many of the Jews, enslaved others, and allowed only a minority of Jews to remain .in Judea (where their descendants remained right up to present times).
As an insult to these defeated Jews and in an attempt to eradicate Jewish identity, Hadrian mockingly renamed Judea as ‘Syria-Palestinia’ (‘Palestinia’ being the Latin word for ‘Philistine’, a once arch-enemy of the Jews who were by now extinct.)
So; over 3000 years after the existence of the Jews in Israel has been repeatedly historically proved, we have the first mention of the word ‘Palestine’, but it was little more than a Roman ‘nick-name used to cause offense to the subjugated Jews, and the people we now – wrongly – refer to as ‘Palestinians’ were simply ‘Arabs’ who referred to themselves as Arabs for hundreds of years until they were titled “Palestinians” for propaganda purposes by the terrorist founder of the PLO, Yassir Arafat in 1964.
Arafat himself never used the term “Palestinian” until after 1964,and far from Arabs historically using the term ’Palestinian’, they rejected and denounced it:
As far back as 1937, Arab leader Abdul-Hadi in his address to the Peel Commission said:
"There is no such country [as Palestine]. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented."
40 years later, in 1977, the same sentiment was expressed in an interview by Zahir Muhsein, a member of the PLO Executive Committee who stated;
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak about the existence of the Palestinian people."
The historical evidence also suggests that Arabs were not populous in the Holy Land until the 7th century when Muhammad initiated the spread of Islam by force and conquest.
In addition, it is telling that in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, 99% of places still have their original Hebrew names; including Bethlehem, Nazareth and Hebron.
So whilst I respect the rights of anyone on here to post their opinions on this admittedly emotional and complex issue, I cannot agree with any of the anti-Israeli comments – least of all the claim that the Israelis ‘stole’ a country from the ‘Palestinians’ because in my opinion, for over 3000 years, the ‘country’ was never anyone’s but the Israelis’ anyway, and they have merely resettled in it.
If the Lakota Sioux Indians were to be given back the state of Dakota by the US Government to resettle in, it would be ludicrous for anyone knowing the historical facts to protest that the Lakota were 'stealing' a state from the 'Americans', so therefore, for anyone to deny the rights of the Israelis to reclaim and resettle in Israel in the face of the historical evidence, is just as ridiculous - in my opinion.
The historical truth of Britain's duplicity in causing the current state-of-affairs in Israel, and the addressing of certain anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish, pro-Palestinian, comments on here, are other posts, but while I agree with Livia that Israel as a nation is not perfect nor totally innocent, I would state in their defense, that the USA and Britain are neither perfect nor totally innocent, and they have had hundreds of years and thousands of years respectively to 'get it right',so is it not grossly hypocritical and arrogant to expect Israel to achieve perfection in less than 70 years?
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07-03-2015, 12:49 AM
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