Ignorance is No Excuse #2

Israel (temporarily aka Palestine) Once Was and Now Is Israel

Palestinian claims of uninterrupted Arab hegemony in Jerusalem and the Land once and now known as Israel for thousands of years is emphatically disproved by the easily accessible archeological evidence in the ancient city of Jerusalem and surroundings. Whether or not you elect to study the genetic, regional, cultural and religious origins of the peoples now living in this tiny strip of land, facts exist that give witness to thousands of years of Jewish history in the Land of Israel. While you may not accept the authority of the ancient Jewish texts (as seen for example in the scrolls of Qumran and the Aleppo codex), you cannot avoid the testimony of history as revealed by the stones themselves. And if you distrust the Jewish writings, then take a look at the widespread writings of nations who have invaded, conquered and been conquered in this land. They agree on time and place of many significant events with each other and with the exposed physical evidence.

It is amazing and absurd that over the last 60 plus years we have witnessed a mass worldwide acceptance of wild historical claims propagated by the leaders of the PLO with the help of world politicians and a willing media. Internalization of this information as fact is not only to be found among those who have no grounding in Asian-Middle Eastern social and religious history, but is propagated among those who claim to be highly educated. For the uninformed perhaps easy acceptance is emotional, an instinctive identification with a group presenting itself as the underdog, but for others there is an agenda, political, economic or social. The politicians are using a forged history to foment international opinion against Israel for their own benefit while knowing full well true history. They twist and erase the facts, deciding the logos, mantras and emotionally loaded words to achieve their purpose. The result? With money and media noise, they are guilty of stirring mobs to violence and fueling a fire that may engulf the Middle East and spread to the whole civilized world.

Let’s begin with Palestine.  It’s easy to find the origin and history of the word.

Here’s one source:

Palestine of Rome

The name Palestine refers to a region of the eastern Mediterranean coast from the sea to the Jordan valley and from the southern Negev desert to the Galilee lake region in the north. The word itself derives from “Plesheth”, a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as “Philistine”. Plesheth, (root palash) was a general term meaning rolling or migratory. This referred to the Philistine’s invasion and conquest of the coast from the sea. The Philistines were not Arabs nor even Semites, they were most closely related to the Greeks originating from Asia Minor and Greek localities. They did not speak Arabic. They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs.  (Origin of the Name)

The pronunciation of Philistine as transliterated into English was Palestine –  Falestin when transliterated into Arabic.  Therefore the name itself makes no claim of the history of a people, but instead is one of the several names applied to the variations of a geographical are ruled by , depending on who was ruling. Any citizens including Jews, Muslims and Christians, who live permanently in Israel: Palestinian Jews, Palestinian Christians, and Palestinian Muslims.  Once the State of Israel was established, the Palestinian Jews began to refer to themselves as Israelis. The PLO then hijacked the name and invented a genetic history for a mix of tribal peoples of Arab descent and Muslim faith who had lived in the area for varied periods of time. Until that time there was never a “separate people” called Palestinians and never an identifiable nationhood for an Arabic-speaking united people under that name.

Recently the news headlines in Arab movies, publications and, worst of all, in children’s school books show ‘historical proofs’ that all of the cities located in the State of Israel are historically ‘Palestinian Arab’, historically built with ancient Arabic names and lived in by the” Palestinian” Arabs. For example:

• Jerusalem, capital of the nation of Israel/Judea (1000 BCE – 70 CE), mentioned 670 times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Joshua 10:1; – PA Arabic: Al-Quds
• Hebron, first capital of the tribe of Judah, mentioned 73 times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Genesis 13:18; – PA Arabic: Al-Khalil
• Atarot, mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Numbers 32:3; PA Arabic: Atara
• Shechem, capital of Israel after the nation divided [922 BCE], mentioned 64 times in the Hebrew Bible (including a small number of references to two people of that name). First reference: Genesis 33:18; – PA Arabic: Nablus
• Ashkelon, a Philistine city, mentioned nine times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Judges 1:18 – PA Arabic: Askelan
  [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Is’haq Feleifel, July 1, 2011] from the article and translation) ‘Palestinians’ claim Jerusalem, Hebron and others had Arabic names

According to the Ottoman census of 1882, Palestine had a pop. of 41,000 Muslims including non-Arabs. However, by 1889, the Jews were Jerusalem’s majority- 25,000 in a pop. of 40,000. This small Arabic-speaking population included Arabs and Jews and during this time the places were called by Arabic names. These often sounded similar to, were a transliteration of , or were translations of the original name, thus helping to preserve the ancient identification. Now these original names have been or are being restored.

Strange isn’t it, that in order to conquer a land (Israel) and vanquish a people (the Jews), a people and a history had to be invented out of whole cloth? But isn’t it stranger still that in the day of so much information and of international interaction, so many would believe and even die to prove the lie!?

Ignorance is no excuse!